John Carter: UNSC Marine Corps
by Freelancer 205
Summary: UNSC mercenary John Carter is sent to find another system for humans to populate due to all UNSC controlled colonies becoming overpopulated.Watch the HALOID vid for chap 15.Please R&R. Sequel is, John Carter: Reality
1. Chapter 1 Memories

Authors note: this is my first fanfiction, so be kind

Authors note: this is my first fanfiction, so be kind. Please leave tips and what not in your comments. I am not too big on authors notes so don't expect too many of them. Those that I do make I will keep somewhat short.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the weapons, characters, or vehicles in this story unless otherwise mentioned. All respective characters, weapons, and vehicles belong to either Nintendo or Microsoft corp. I do own character captain John Carter but not his affiliation with the UNSC created by Microsoft corp.

Chapter 1- Memories

"Lieutenant, damage report."

"Sir the enemies boarding craft have dropped off fresh reinforcements, we are losing ground fast. They have taken corridor D-8 and the troops in corridor F-7 can't hold out much longer. MAC three is offline, shields are holding at 65."

"Damn it, alright. All personnel, this captain Carter, prepare to abandon ship, lieutenant ready the automatic escape pods."

"Yes sir."

I reach up to my ear and activate my comm. Unit and yell into it, "Lieutenant Keeding."

"Yes captain."

"I want all the wounded on evac pelicans first. Relay to the platoon leaders that I want only two platoons at a time in the hangar for evac, the rest need to hold their positions in the barracks until they receive clearance to proceed to the hangar."

"Yes captain."

"Oh, and Lieutenant."

"Yes captain."

"Do not allow our guests the opportunity to tell about their little excursion aboard this UNSC cruiser."

"Yes captain."

I left the bridge and began running down the corridors to the armory. Once I got there, I grabbed an MA5B assault rifle and put ten magazines in my ammo pouches for it after which I picked up another mag and slammed it into the magazine port on the underside of the rifle and let the bolt go home. I then took a quick glimpse at the ammo counter at the back of the rifle just under the rear iron sights, it read out a crisp **60 **rounds. I thought back to my training for a split second and remembered what the master sergeant had told us. He said during his training us with the MA5B that "this rifle is by far the all around best infantry assault rifle ever made. Whenever you load a fresh magazine into this weapon, you have 60 7.62x51mm armor piercing rounds of rock and roll to turn the tide of a firefight in the favor of you and your fellow soldiers." Just then a sergeant ran into the armory to grab more ammo for his squad members. I heard his footsteps and was snapped out of my reverie when he yelled "captain, what are you doing down here. "I turned to him and simply replied "fighting for my men, sergeant." I accompanied him as he ran back down a main corridor and through a service corridor into another corridor leading into hangar bay two. I could hear and feel in the air the steady and at times sporadic rattle of gunfire. We entered into the hangar and I was instantaneously greeted by multiple plasma bolts causing me to instantly drop to the deck as several flew so close over me as to have nearly nicked the small gear pack I had on my back. I army crawled over to behind some steel crates where a few marines were holding their own. Two of them turned and looked at me most likely expecting more marines for support and not their own ship captain. The squad leader yelled to me "sir, you need to get to the evac pelicans, we can hold out here." I quickly took charge of the situation and told the nearby platoon leader to send a detachment down to hangar bay one with their wounded and on the way back pick up more ammunition from the armory. I gave an injured marine beside me my assault rifle and took his shotgun and all the shells he had for it. I then yelled out over the constant racket of gunfire echoing off of the hangar walls "covering fire!" my marines knew exactly what to do, they had drilled it countless times because it is more than firing blindly, it is rather an extremely orchestrated maneuver requiring much skill. Upon hearing the command, four marines stood straight up while firing fully automatic bursts into areas of suspicion which would reveal the enemy's position and the other marines would pick off the enemies dumb enough to stick out their heads. I took the opportunity to charge the enemy lines held in the hangar and fire several very powerful 8 gauge shotgun shells into their ranks depleting the few numbers of troops they had left. I then quickly ducked behind some cover, narrowly avoiding several more plasma bursts. Then my comm. Unit came to life and the voice of lieutenant Keeding could be heard in it with gunfire in the background.

"Sir, covenant are … to over … the bridge. Cant … hold them … much ………."

I fired the rest of the shells in my shotgun at the enemy and turned to run back to my troops. Once I reached them I turned to the platoon leader while reloading my shotgun and yelled "sergeant, we need to fall back to the bridge. The covenant have overrun it and the cruiser's AI is still up there.

Meanwhile on the bridge:

"So you think your race is superior to ours. You think that your futile attempts will thwart the…" everyone on the bridge was extremely shocked both human and covenant alike when the bridge door blew open and a massive blast from a shotgun sent the elite holding lieutenant Keeding flying into the far wall with purple blood and bits of alien coating the surroundings. I was followed by a squad of marines who laid waist to all the remaining covenant forces on the bridge.

I turned to the AI who was now up on the hologram and told him to pilot the ship to the local planets surface after all personnel had evacuated. Then all of the sudden there was a massive explosion that shook the entire ship. I turned to the AI and did not even have to ask what happened, he said "multiple enemy ships, all cruiser and battleship class, closing on our position, working out jump solutions." This was by far any solo ship's nightmare, being face to face with an entire covenant armada. The AI found a jump solution but there were no end coordinates therefore it was a blind jump. The ships engines powered up and all of the sudden we were traveling at the speed of light. Little did we know though that as we were making the jump, a covenant ship got off one last shot to our aft end. We came out of the jump and there was a violent shaking and screeching as the rear half of the ship tore off. Blast and bulkhead doors slammed shut in less than the blink of an eye. We were left drifting in deep space with no communication, lightyears from earth, and only half a ship. I looked at the floor in mental anguish for all the troops I had lost in that rear half of the ship. It did not separate and stay intact as the forward end did, the rear contained the engines, engines that if they lose their instruction they receive from the bridge, self destruct. I had lost more men in one lightspeed jump than in all the times I had led men into raging combat.


	2. Chapter 2 Awakening

Chapter 2- Awakening

Chapter 2- Awakening

: /file open/

Captain John Carter: UNSC Marine Corps.

Serial number: 466-15-1454

Race: Human

Ethnicity: Caucasian

Age (real): 29

Age (cryo subtracted): 18

Height: 6' 4"

Blood Type: O pos.

Injuries: broken wrist, torn ACL, and multiple plasma injuries/burns to arms, back, and

chest areas.

Family Relations: None all killed in the first attack on Harvest and REACH.

Training: -Recon school

-Sniper school

-Infantry school

-Demolitions school

-Advanced hand to hand combat school

-Completed ODST training

-Advanced out of assigned ODST platoon into Spartan training program.

Graduated 2nd only to Spartan 117.

Commendations: Has received two medals of honors and six purple hearts, no other awards on file.

Notable: Has started the UNSC mercenary corps and heads it. Is not active duty military and only accepts high danger mercenary contracts. Several of which ODST and Spartans have refused to accept.

: /file close/

"Well sir, Is this is our guy."

"Yeah, go ahead and bring him out of cryo."

"Yes sir, wait these scans show that he is in REM sleep, wont that affect him."

"No, I personally remember that in his case he is not affected by REM sickness. He was actually in a military science magazine because of it back on REACH."

"Alright, bringing him out of cryo in 3, 2, and 1. All scans green. Vitals online."

I wake up from my dream as the sound of slight hissing emanates from around me. I open my eyes and catch a glimpse of the cryo tube lid rising off of the rest of the very affectionately named 'casket'. The cryo room officer and his attendant are standing in front of me when I climb out and they both salute me as I stand up all the way. I return the salute and ask the officer why I had been awakened from cryo. He replied very as a matter of factly "You are needed." I nodded and followed them out of the cryo room towards the command center of the military base I had come back to where I had been put in cryo four years ago after my incident in space. As we were walking I kept thinking to myself _"was it really four years ago? If it was so long ago why do I keep dreaming about it? Damn I need to stretch. I hope they have me do something more worthwhile this time around where far less lives will be at stake."_

I was pulled away from my thoughts as I heard a gruff but somewhat familiar voice.

"Ah, captain Carter," Said Lord Hood.

I saluted as I said "Commander Hood, nice to see you again. I hope however that you need me for something that will put far less as many lives at risk as compared to the last mission I was sent on."

He nodded and replied "yes, I heard how tore up you were about losing your fellow comrades and soldiers. But no, this mission we are requesting you to go on will have far less lives hanging in the balance. We need you along with a team of ODST specialists to scout out another planet or entire system suitable for human population."

"But sir, why would you need me to go on a mission such as that."

"We chose you first because this is a high risk high priority mission and you and with your extensive training and combat experience, should be able to surmount any opposition."

"Yes sir, when do you need me to depart?"

"We have everything already in order so in approximately four hours. My lieutenant will escort you to the hangar. You and your team will all have five of each type of weapon per individual including the new mag-rail guns, so if you do get in a bind you will definitely have the firepower to get out of it. Oh, I almost forgot. If you are able to, avoid all possibilities of

war with another alien race if you come in contact with one. We are still recovering from our last war with an alien race."

"Yes sir." I saluted a last time and left with the lieutenant.

When I arrived at the hangar and saw my ship, I was amazed. It resembled a much smaller cruiser such as the pillar of autumn but yet it was still capable of traveling at light speeds. I boarded the ship and greeted my crew.

Private Rick Espinoza- sniper

Corporal Arthur Jennings- sniper

Sergeant Marcus Rawlings- demolitions

Private First Class Chris Moore- technical specialist

Sergeant First Class Elliot Mendoza- engineer

Corporal Richard Lawson- navigator

2ND Lieutenant Stephanie Bradford- medic

2nd Lieutenant Rachel Norris- medic

I greeted each of them and went off to inspect the armory. I definitely liked what I saw in there. The mag-rail is a new type of pistol just out of prototype phase and this would probably be its first off earth test. Accompanying it were MA5B and MA5C assault rifles, M90 shotguns, M7 SMG's, SA2-AM sniper rifles with the new armor piercing and anti-personnel ammo, M6C magnum type pistols, and BR-55HB battle rifles. In the back pert of the armory which also doubled as the hangar bay were five pelicans two of which were heavily armored and marked with large red crosses on the sides, ten M12-LRV warthogs, ten mongoose individual troop transport vehicles, eight enter atmospheric hornet type aerial fighters, four of what very closely resembled long sword fighters but about half the size and capable of extra and enter atmospheric flight, and one behemoth class elephant troop and vehicle transport vehicle.

I was pulled away from my inspection of the weapons and vehicles when a feminine voice came from behind me.

"Captain."

"Yes, Lieutenant Bradford."

"The crew and I were wondering if you cared if we brought along some personal effects."

"No, I don't mind at all. We're not technically on a military mission more than a scientific mission so I don't see anything wrong with that."

"Ok, thanks Captain."

"Bradford."

"Yes captain."

"Call me Carter, it's not a military mission, remember."

"Yes Cap… I mean Carter."

And with that she left and I resumed my inspection of the equipment, vehicles and weapons.

_3 hours later_

Commander Hood's voice came over the intercom and announced that the ship was now ready to leave and that all hatches were being sealed up. About five minutes after that I arrived on the bridge and began the launch procedures. Commander Hoods face appeared on the view screen in front of me and bid us all good luck and gave me the all clear for launch. I entered in the engine systems activation codes and the entire ship roared to life. We lifted off the ground and were shaken a bit as the sub class cruiser made its way through the atmosphere. Fifteen minutes later we were in space and receiving the jump coordinates. Commander Hoods face appeared on the view screen and he gave us one final message before our journey.

"Comrades, I hope this is not the last message you receive from us here on earth. You will be far out of range for even our strongest communication systems but do know that you are all in our thoughts and prayers, please come back alive."

And with the conclusion of that message our light speed jump to the unknown began. Nothing could prepare us for who we were to destined meet or what we were destined to end up facing on this journey.


	3. Chapter 3 Somewhere Else

Authors note: In this fan fiction it is as if command never happened

Authors note: In this fan fiction it is as if command never happened. It is set about 4-6 months after the aparoid wars.

Chapter 3- Somewhere Else

_Meanwhile in the Lylat system_

"Fox you don't know how bored I am. I mean ever since the end of the aparoid war and peppy retiring, we haven't got no decent missions to keep our heads above water."

"Wow Falco, that has to be a record, you've complained to me for what is, I know I had that tally sheet somewhere around here. Aha, almost the fortieth time this week and its not even Thursday yet."

"Well, he does have a point Fox, I mean we really haven't gotten to blow anything up in a while and its makin' me sick. I mean really, we're mercenaries it's what we do."

"I agree Slippy. Fox we really should try and find something to do mission wise or at least get off this ship for a while, its nothing like the Greatfox was anyway."

"Yeah Fox, Krystal's right. We need to get off of this ship for a while or we're all going to go insane."

"All right, were do y'all want to go anyway."

"Personally, I vote for either Sauria or Aquas. I hear theres a pretty good resort at Aquas, ya know four stars and all. We could do like maybe one or two quick escort missions and pick up the dough off those and then head off with enough to atleast have a decent time with."

"That sounds good, what do you two think."

"I'm up for that." Replied Krystal and Slippy almost in unison.

"Good, then its settled. We'll wait for a quick mission or two to show up then we'll all head to Aquas for a little R&R. So keep your ears open for anything that might pay something."

With that Falco and Slippy left the bridge which left Fox and Krystal alone to small talk and sit. There was more sitting than small talking going on though due to the fact that both of them were in deep thought.

Fox's thoughts

"_I wonder if I should tell her how I feel about her. I just don't know, jeez I wish this were easier than it is or seems to be. She couldn't feel the same way about me that I do about her, no that would be crazy, I'm a merc' and she's like perfect. I don't deserve her she's too good for me. Maybe I'll just ask her. "_

Krystal's thoughts:

"_I wish I knew whether he felt the same way about me as I do about him, it would make things so much easier around here for me. Maybe he doesn't want us to have a relationship that goes beyond friends or coworkers. I just wish I knew and I'm to afraid to read his mind on it because I don't want the answer to actually be that he doesn't care for me like that."_

"Hey Krys'."

"Yes Fox."

"Um, uh, do you know where Falco and Slippy went?"

"I think they went to the kitchen."

"Yeah they probably did. I'm getting' kinda hungry, you."

"Yeah, it is getting sort of late; we should go get some dinner."

"Yep, just what I was thinking."

So with that Fox and Krystal made their way to the kitchen and all the while Krystal was pondering her thoughts from earlier and Fox was mentally beating the crap out of himself for not having the guts to ask Krystal, the only vixen he has really ever fantasized about, the intended question from his thoughts on the bridge.


	4. Chapter 4 Arrival: Part I

Authors note: Sorry if I spelled the name of that planet wrong in the last chapter. I didn't know if it was aquas or aquias so I went with the former. If it is aquias, I apologize but I'm just gonna stick with aquas for this story. Correct it in your head if you know the right one.

Chapter 4- Arrival: Part I

: / Captains Log – 7 March 2559 /

We have been in light speed travel for two weeks and have finally arrived at the system previously encoded into the nav-system. All crew are well, with no illness or injuries to report. We will begin the search of this system for a suitable life sustaining planet for human colonization.

: / Captains Log Close/

After recording my captain's log for the day I turn from my computer screen and begin running the ever necessary post-jump ship diagnostics with the help of Moore, Mendoza, and Lawson. About thirty minutes into the diagnostics tests Mendoza brings to my attention something I did not want to hear very much of, especially after my last encounter with shipboard problems in deep space.

"Carter, it seems that there was a malfunction in the hyper-drive unit that occurred during the jump."

"Well Mendoza, what was it."

"The entire hyper-drive unit came under too much stress during the jump for having to supply such a high power output for such a prolonged time. In short we can't get back to where we came from, the way we came until it is repaired."

"How long could that take?"

"In a UNSC repair dock, about a month. Out here, I have no idea. We don't even have the parts or proper tools to fix it correctly. If we try to do a redneck repair we'll all die as soon as we power the unit up, but I do have some good news."

"And what's that."

"We can still operate the regular engines. So in short we can till move all over this system, just not very fast."

"Okay."

With that I sent a message over the intercom to the rest of the team members telling of the news and also informing them to get prepared to land on the nearest planet because we could expect to arrive there in about three hours.

My thoughts:

"_Why is it that when I'm piloting a ship, somethin' always has to go wrong. Someone always dies or the ship loses a major function or part. I just don't understand it; it's like the most retarded thing ever."_ (Sigh).

About 3 hours later

"Captain."

"Yes Lawson."

"Would you like to hear the stats on the planet that our scans have acquired?"

"Yes please."

"Alright, um, where should I begin? Ok, the planets is covered with, from what I and Private Moore can tell from the scans, about ninety percent water, very little land mass but it seems that there was quite a bit of organic/bio readouts present on the ten percent of uncovered land. That may mean that there is intelligent life there but we can't tell for certain from this distance with just these standard long range scanners, so Moore and I are guessing that it is most likely local plant and _animal_ life."

"Okay, sounds like an easy enough place to go explore on. I am going to go get my gear ready and you should to. Don't worry about bringing a full ground combat load because I'm going to try to land the ship on the surface of the planet."

I then turned and left the bridge to go and get ready, all the while thinking _"I_ _wonder what types of plants and animals are there. Hopefully the present animal life, if there is any is somewhat friendly, I'd rather not get eaten while trying to explore a new home for humans."_

While in my quarters getting my field clothes and armor on, I was ripped from my thoughts as the ship suddenly shook from a sudden and dull thud.

"Damn." I thought. I then reached up to my ear and pressed my comm. unit which immediately broadcast my voice onto the bridge.

"Moore, Lawson, what happened."

"Sir, we were struck by a plasma or laser blast. It definitely was not covenant though."

"How do you know?"

"It wasn't strong enough. Covenant spacecraft weapons are much more powerful."

"Can we engage them?"

"No, it is three small craft. One just flew past the bridge window. They look somewhat like older human jet fighters. They are red and black with very sharp looking silver wings."

"All right, switch my comm. over to ship-wide broadcast." He did so and I began giving my orders out to the other crew members which was accompanied by deep thuds as laser after laser pounded into the hull of the ship.

"All crew members, we are under attack. The enemy is too small to engage in space combat so we are taking the fight to the surface of the planet. Get your armor on and weapons locked and loaded, two warthogs need to be ready to roll out once we land get moving."

I ran back up to the bridge and started to pilot the ship down to the surface of the planet with the help of Lawson and Moore. When we entered the atmosphere, the thuds from the laser fire receded and shaking from the sudden air resistance soon enveloped the entire ship. The ground loomed dangerously closer wit every passing second but my instincts took over from my extensive training in ship piloting and I managed to land the ship on the surface of the planet with no external damage. I then got up from the captains seat as the engines automatically shut down and sprinted towards the armory/hangar where the rest of my team members were. When I arrived my team was making final preparations on the two warthogs, one with a gauss cannon and another with the standard machinegun turret. I quickly grabbed a helmet off of the rack next to the weapons area and slung a Spartan laser over my back. I then picked up a mag-rail gun, put it in the holster on my left leg due to the one on my right already being occupied by my ever trusty M6C, and picked up an MA5B assault rifle with extra ammunition. Rawlings then hit the control pad for the hangar door to open and we began departing to engage the enemy on our terms, the enemy however did not land and do as we did, they stayed in the air. I had counted on this and this was why I ordered for the two warthogs to be prepped. The first machine gunning warthog rolled out, guns a blazin' and managed to land several hits right off the bat on the first enemy craft. I ran out with my assault rifle and fired on the underside of the second enemy ship, landing hits right up into the area where the exhaust from the engine came out of, causing it to smoke quite a bit. By now the second gauss warthog was out in the open and the third craft came over for its run but was abruptly halted as a 25mm high explosive round from the gauss cannon struck its starboard side, the jet type fighter instantly went into an uncontrollable roll as the starboard side wing was ripped off from the explosion and crashed about four hundred meters from our position. With one down, we knew that the other two would be much easier to take out. It was almost as if these enemies were never exposed to solid projectile weapons such as ours. As soon as I finished that thought, the fighter that I had damaged earlier came back around for an attack run. I threw down my assault rifle because of not having enough time to reload it and pulled out my magnum in my right hand and the mag-rail in my left. This was one thing that proved to be extremely valuable in my combat experiences throughout the years, the fact that in Spartan training we were taught how to shoot ambidextrously and with two weapons at once. The enemy craft was closing fast and I started to fire at it with my magnum which, though did little damage, managed to distract the pilot and allow me to get a clear shot with the mag-rail. The mag-rail is still a bit of an experimental weapon, it uses very powerful magnets to "pull" a one half inch wide by four and a half inch long piece of depleted uranium rod at a tenth of the speed of light, it can basically kill or destroy anything with a well placed shot. With this in mind I took aim at the front of the craft and pulled the trigger on the weapon, half a second later after the capacitator had received a charge sufficient enough from the integrated fusion pack, a rod of uranium left the front of the weapon and instantaneously struck the front of the fighter, pierced through the craft belly armor and exited via the top of the craft and probably left the atmosphere. The fighter slowly lost altitude until we heard it crash maybe two hundred and fifty meters to our rear. Almost as soon as we heard it crash the last fighter flew in, firing. The laser blasts barely missed us and our vehicles and everyone was trying to manage to get a bead on the forward of the craft but to no prevail, it was too fast. Our fire did cause the enemy craft to have to stop firing and avoid being hit so I took this welcome opportunity and whipped out my Spartan laser, flipped up the computerized aiming reticule and began charging the monster of a weapon, all the while trying to keep the crosshairs over the fighter. The charge completed and a beam of red laser energy left the front of the weapon and struck the underside of the craft. Upon being hit with the blast from the Spartan laser, the enemy ship instantly dropped altitude and crashed the closest to us, only about fifty meters away. After the fight I looked around at my troops, Lawson had the only injury, a deep nick from one of the laser blasts. Bradford and Norris were already tending to his wound. I however was not really that worried about the welfare of my soldiers at the moment; I was more interested in finding out what or who attacked us.

"Norris, Espinoza, you're with me, the rest of you hold your positions here. We're going to check out what's in those craft. Maybe they will want to be our allies after getting their asses handed to them while they were in fighters, let's move out."

The three of us arrived at the first ship but all stopped about ten meters away from it. I gave the signal for the other two to wait there for my signal. I didn't want them too close to possible avoidable danger. I began to approach the craft and when I got close enough to it I saw a rose painted on the side of it just below the cockpit.

I turned to the other two soldiers and jokingly said, "Hey, we might have a ladies man in here. It's got a rose on the side."

They both laughed, but little did we know that what was inside of the craft was a ladies man and exactly a man. I walked the rest of the way to the side of the ship, keeping my weapon partially trained on it. When I got within distance of the craft, which is close enough to touch it, I reached out and grabbed onto the part of the wing closest to the actual fuselage and swung myself up onto the top of the craft. Once on top I retrained my rifle onto the cockpit area and waited for something, if anything, to happen, nothing did. I was rather baffled by this because I was used to having to fight a covenant pilot of anything to the death and they were always outside their crashed vehicle by the time we got there, so I concluded that this was not a covenant related race but something different and decided to open the cockpit myself, even though I could not see through the heavily tinted glass on the windshield. I signaled for the other two to come over and help me get the thing open. As soon as they arrived at the side of the craft, I was bombarded by questions as to what it was or where I thought it came from, so I finally told them to shut up and help me get the cockpit open, they quickly agreed. We searched all over the sides of the craft for an emergency manual release and finally found one in the midst of the painted on rose. I pulled it and slight hisses emitted as the hydraulics were called into action. The cockpit glass rose up and uncovered the interior of the cockpit. We all kept our weapons trained on the rising glass and surrounding area in order not to be blind sided by a last ditch attack from the pilot. About three seconds later, the glass was completely raised up and I was the first to peer inside. What I saw was definitely not what I expected, I made this known with a pronounced, "Whoa, holy shit. Didn't see that comin'."

The two others accompanying me asked in unison what it was and I replied with, "I'll tell you this much, Lawson and Moore were right when they said there was _animal_ life here. I aint seen nothin' like this in my life. It's like something out of a video game or Sci-Fi movie."

"Well, what is it Cap'."

"I think it's a cat of some kind, looks like a partially humanized black panther."

"What, are you f'ing with us Cap'n. Cause that aint funny."

"No. I'm being serious. Damn, this is weird. Alright we're taking it back to the ship, also need to go check and see if anyone is in the other ship, whatever this thing is its still breathing and when it comes to, it probably wont try to screw around with us anymore cause of what we did to 'em from the ground while they had air superiority."

I then reached into the cockpit interior with my knife and cut the safety harness off of the being and lifted it out of the cockpit and up onto my shoulder. While doing this I got a glimpse of the controls and gauge readouts, they were all in English. I then jumped down with the creature thing resting on my shoulder fireman's carry style and proceeded back to our ship. While back many thoughts flooded my mind.

My thoughts:

"_Damn, what the hell is this thing? This is weird, that ship had very human like design to it and this is apparently an intelligent being. I wonder if there are more like it here. Are they friendly? Do they speak English? The inside of that cockpit had English writing on the gauges and readouts, maybe so. Aww hell, I hope I didn't just drag us or humanity into another war with an alien race. This excursion is just going great."_


	5. Chapter 5 Arrival: Part II

Authors Note: I almost forgot to tell you all this, so I will now

Authors Note: people, leave some comments, I mean c'mon. I don't know what you think of the story unless you leave comments. I almost forgot to tell you all this, so I will now. If you want to have an idea of what some of the fight scenes in this story will be like then go to YOUTUBE (I know you can if your reading this story cause you gots internet), and type in HALOID, just like its spelled. Yes I know the ending sucks balls but the first about 8 minutes are amazing. I do not own HALOID.

Chapter 5- Arrival: Part II

Its about ten hundred hours on March 7, 2559 Cornerian calendar and the Starfox team has just arrived on Aquas for their long awaited vacation, little did any of them suspect that their vacation would be interrupted by an unexpected happening on this seemingly harmless vacation planet.

"Oh my god. I never thought land would look so good. I really got to tell you Fox, if we were on this ship any longer I might have tried to strangle you."

"Well, now you don't have to cause we're here and we got enough credits for about a weeks worth of good vacation (hands them all credits). Just try not to blow 'em all in one place. Krystal and I will go check us all into a hotel."

"All right, sounds good. Me and Slip'll go check out what the towns got to do and contact ya'll if we find anything good to do. You two probably want some private time anyway don't ya' foxy." Falco said with his signature smirk across his face.

"What, no… it's not like… aagh, shut up Falco."

"Sure its not." Both Falco and Slippy had smiles across their faces and were about to bust out laughing due to the darker and darker shades of red, even evident through his facial fur, that Fox was turning. And with that both Falco and Slippy walked off in search of some other fun.

"I wish they wouldn't do that."

"Why's that Fox?"

"It embarrasses me when they do that."

"Oh. _I hope that doesn't mean he's embarrassed of me. No, he's probably just shy is all."_

Krystal was pulled out of her thoughts when Fox asked her if she was ready to go search fro a hotel. She replied with a nod and they both left in search of a suitable hotel for the stay on Aquas.

About 2 hrs. later.

Fox and Krystal had walked for a long time and passed up multiple hotels because of various reasons. Some of them being snobby receptionists to too high of prices.

"I think this would be a good one. What do you think?"

"I like it; I think we might be able to agree this one."

"Yeah, let's go in and check it out." They walk I through the large covered patio type entrance which had a cascading waterfall coming down both sides of it and were greeted by a friendly looking poodle behind the receptionist desk. Fox walked up to the desk and asked how much four individual rooms would cost. The receptionist replied, with a bit of a frown, that there were only three individual rooms left and that it would total 360 credits a night. Fox nodded and said that they would accept the three rooms. In his mind he would just stay with Slippy or Falco in their room, but fate would throw a kink in that plan. The receptionist handed Fox the three key cards and told him that the rooms were on the fourth floor to the right out of the elevator. Both Fox and Krystal thanked her and began their now much shorter journey to the rooms. When they got to the rooms, Fox contacted Falco and Slippy and told them the name, location, and room numbers in the hotel. Falco responded with quick thanks and told Fox that he and Slippy were going to go get something to eat, he then ended the transmission and Fox's wrist communicator screen went dark. Fox then turned to Krystal, just now realizing his hunger, and asked her if she was hungry. She nodded and said "yes, very", simultaneously. Fox and Krystal then made their way back down to the lobby and asked the receptionist where the nearest restaurant was. She told them that it would be about two blocks towards the downtown area, and that they couldn't miss it. Fox again thanked the receptionist and turned around to be greeted by a familiar face he hadn't seen in a long time, Katt Monroe. Katt saw him too and before he could say anything, she was in front of him and giving him and Krystal big hugs.

"Fox, whatcha been doin'." She asked.

Fox replied with a rather humdrum sounding, "nothing much, you."

"No, not much here either. Me and my sister decided to take a vacation from the boredom and we thought here would be a good place to hang for a while. You've met my sister haven't you, no wait you didn't. Hey Alex, come over here a sec, I want you to meet a friend of mine. Fox and Krystal, meet Alex. Alex, meet Fox and Krystal. This is the captain of the Starfox team, Alex. Hey Fox, where's Falco at?"

Fox smiled and chuckled a bit at hearing her question but gave her the best answer he could, "He and Slip' are out eating somewhere, why you wanna know?"

She smiled back and replied, "No reason in particular, just wonderin'."

"Well Krys' and I were about to go get some lunch, would you care to join us."

"Well, if you're sure you don't mind, I guess we can."

"No, we wouldn't mind a bit. C'mon to the restaurant down the street a ways. It'll be fun."

They group of four then left and made their way down to the restaurant. They arrived, got seated, ate, talked, joked, and laughed with one another throughout the whole meal and before they knew it, it was a little after two o'clock in the afternoon. While they were all finishing eating, Fox's communicator beeped all of the sudden. He expected to see Falco's face in the screen on the communicator but to his dismay it was general Pepper's. He looked at everyone and said rather dishearteningly that he had to take this call. He then left the table and walked outside at which time he flipped up the comm. Screen and said as lightheartedly as possible, "what's up, Pepper."

"Well Fox, it seems that there is a distress signal originating from the planet Aquas, and we need you to go check it ou…"

He was cut off as Fox said, "general, we're on Aquas, on vacation. Is it really that important?"

"All we need you and your team to do is check it out, please you're already there."

"All right, we'll do it. Where's it originating from?"

"Its originating from a small island to the northwest of the mainland and it seems like a rather small distress beacon, but do be careful."

"Yes general, Fox out." He then closed the comm. channel and walked back inside to give the news to the members of his lunch group. Upon him doing this, Krystal's expression went from cheerful to somewhat dim because she thought that they'd gotten away from missions for at least a week, but she accepted it and tried to look at the bright side, at least she'd be with Fox on another ground mission. That was the part that that he did not want to tell Falco though. Fox knew that Falco hates ground missions with a vengeance, but he'd have to deal with this one for a while. Since they lacked enough arwings for everyone to go in so he decided that he would sort of make this a fun excursion for everyone. He contacted Slippy and Falco and told them to meet him at ferry dock two in about thirty minutes because they had a mission to do. As usual Falco reacted in his not so nonchalant way with questioning why and how this happened when they were on vacation but agreed to meet them at the dock. Fox and Krystal on the other hand went to rent four dune buggies to go investigate the distress signal with; there was no need for weapons because each of the team had their individual blasters already. About thirty minutes later, Fox and Krystal arrive at the dock where the four dune buggies had been sent, Falco and Slippy were already there and had been waiting for the last two of the group to show up for about ten minutes. When Fox and Krystal arrived, Falco was about to make one of his smart comments but was cut off before he even started as Fox sensed this and said, "don't even think about it," In a rather menacing tone. Once all of the team were there and ready to go, they loaded the ferry and began the short waterborne journey to their destination, the small island to the Northwest of the main island. During most of the trip, all was silent except for the sound of the water lapping the sides of the large ferry. Not even Falco was saying anything. In reality, Falco was pissed about the mission, Slippy was contemplating something it seemed, and Fox and Krystal were once again in deep thought.

Fox's thoughts

"_I should just tell her how I feel, but what if she doesn't feel the same about me. Jeez, I wish I knew if I could, I mean, I think I really love her and I want to have a relationship beyond friends or coworkers with her but I… (Mental sigh)."_

Krystal's thoughts

"_I wish I knew whether he liked me or not. I just don't understand why he can't tell me the way he feels for me. (Mental sigh) I wish he would just come out and tell me."_

Both Fox and Krystal were pulled out of their thoughts as Falco announced rather curtly that they were at the island and it was time to get business done and get back to vacationing as fast as possible.

"Well actually Falco, me and Krystal thought that it would be fun to go dune buggying today, which is why we went ahead and rented the four dune buggies for the day. That way we don't have to check out the distress signal on foot the whole time and after we check it out we can just hang out on the island for a while and drive around."

"Cool that sounds like the best idea you've had in a while."

"Thought you'd like it."

After all the team members got off of the ferry, each member got into their own dune buggy and set off to go find the distress signal. They all decided to investigate the easterly part of the island first and then move to the west and northern sides. Fox told everyone it should not take too long to find the distress signal due to the island only being about fourteen square miles; at least it would not take as long as being on foot. So they all set off, trying to stay within about 100 meters of the side of each other, to find out the reason for the distress signal being broadcast.

About twenty minutes later

Fox and the rest of the group arrive at the area where the distress signal was coming from and are extremely shocked to find the Starwolf team's wolfens crash landed and almost completely destroyed, but with no plasma scarring to be found anywhere on them. Upon seeing what they looked like Slippy remarked that it looked as if they were all struck with a ton of tiny asteroids all over. They had all known the Starwolf team to try and set traps by broadcasting distress signals sometimes, but they all clearly saw today that the Starwolf team was in need of assistance. What baffled everyone even more so was the fact that all the wolfen cockpit canopies were open and the Starwolf members, Wolf, Panther, and Leon were nowhere to be found? Fox then relayed to the rest of the team members that they were going to split up and search for the Starwolf team individually. Falco was to go to the northern side of the island and search, Slippy would take the immediate and surrounding areas, Fox would go to the southern part, and Krystal would search the western side of the island. Everyone was to try and work their way back into the center of the island as their search pattern carried on. They then all set off in search of the Starwolf team and what or who happened to them. After Falco and Slippy set off, Fox told Krystal that if she needed any help or got into a situation to just contact him and he'd be there as fast as he could. She nodded and set off to the west.

Krystal's thoughts

"_Maybe he does care about me as more than just a friend, he said to contact __him__ if anything came up and that he'd be there to help me as soon as he could. All I can do is hope that he cares about me the way I do about him. Fox please don't get hurt by yourself out there and I'll try to do the same for you."_

Before she knew it she was on the western side of the island and something just to her left caught her attention enough to distract her from driving and without warning the dune buggy's right wheel hit a rock just barely protruding out of the ground yet just enough to throw the vehicle out of control. All of the sudden, Krystal was being thrown through the air and the dune buggy was flipping side over side under her. She then hit the ground and tried to salvage as much of a last ditch roll, in order to keep every bone in her body from breaking, as she could. The roll proved to absorb much of the total blow but it still knocked the wind out of her, to her relief nothing was broken and she was still conscious, only slightly bruised and scratched up all over. She lay there on the cool ground for a moment but finally forced herself to get up and go inspect the remains of the dune buggy. When she got to it she found that the roll bars were mostly bent but the rest of it looked fine and still in working condition, "only one way to find out though," she thought to herself as she heaved with all her might to try and get it off of its side, but the thing would not budge. She finally gave up in distress and decided to contact Fox and inform her of her situation. She did so and he told her he'd be there in about thirty minutes. As the comm. link closed, she thought to herself about what she had seen earlier when she was driving. She turned around and to her astonishment, only about 1000 meters to her rear was a space craft, but not a small one, no this one was as big as the great fox if not bigger. From what she could tell there was a rather large vehicle looking thing to the side of it and behind that was a large door that seemed to lead to the inside of the ship, though it was somewhat difficult for her to really make out much detail at that distance with no binoculars or scope of any kind. The ship seemed to be much smoother looking than the Greatfox did though, sort of like a grey/steel colored hexagonal building turned on its side, it lacked the large wings that the Greatfox had on the sides towards the rear. With a new found curiosity for the ship and still wanting to find out what happened to the Starwolf team, she contacted Fox and told of her finding, closed the channel before he could object to anything and the cerulean vixen began to make her way towards the large craft. All the while thinking, "I'll show them, I'm not always the damsel in distress. I'll figure out what this is on my own." Little did she know what she was to find for at the same instant she was walking towards the newfound craft, another pair of eyes were watching her every move and contemplating what to do about the new figure walking lonely in the late afternoon light.


	6. Chapter 6 Arrival: Part III

Chapter 6 Arrival: Part III

Authors note: how many of you actually watched HALOID. Tell me in a review what you thought of it; do not, however, tell me how crappy the ending was. I ALREADY KNOW.

Chapter 6 Arrival: Part III

I lay atop the Elephant type vehicle watching this new, very strange looking being walk towards the ship and where I was positioned with my sniper rifle at the ready in my hands. The rest of my crew had gone back into the ship and were most likely eating or just hanging out, which was one thing a lot of people that worked with me liked about me, the fact that I didn't care what they did, besides drinking, until it was time to get a job done. As I watched this new creature walk towards the ship, I couldn't help but wonder at whether or not we were about to get into a war with another alien race or if their government would understand that we acted out of self defense. I shook these thoughts off as the being neared around five hundred meters and just stopped and seemed to look directly at me. I backed my head away from the scope which gave me a wider range of vision and from what I could tell, the individual was not looking directly at me, as a matter of fact I don't think it even knew I was there, but rather it was looking at the whole ship and surrounding area. I looked back through the scope and saw that its ears were flicking back and forth and that it appeared to be a female type animal with blue fur. It or she seemed to be listening for something.

Krystal's thoughts

"_What on earth was that noise? Maybe I'm just hearing things, huh. Oh well, time to keep on moving along towards this ship. Wait, what's that?"_

All of the sudden a reptile type creature tried to jump the blue individual. I don't even know how I didn't see it coming; it was most likely because the sniper scope gave me tunnel vision. As the velociraptor type dinosaur creature leaped at the being, she executed a swat roll, just barely got out of the way, and the raptor thing flew right over where she previously was standing. And just as the blue colored figure was getting up and trying to get out her weapon the raptor charged again but the cerulean being seemed froze with fear and did not move. Just as the dino was nearing the vital three meter radius where it would leap and the female figure looked as if she were hopeless, a white vapor trail hit the dinosaur in the side of the head, causing blood, flesh, and brains to be sent flying a short distance and the dino to drop dead about twelve inches from the figures feet. She then looked to her right where the vapor trail had originated from and saw that the dissipating parts of it led back to the top of the large vehicle type thing next to the large space craft. The being began to sprint towards the Elephant I was on seemingly out of fear that another dino creature would try to attack her again.

Krystal's thoughts

"_Oh thank you God for that. And whoever you are up there thank you too. Maybe whoever is up there can help me find out where the Starwolf team is."_

When she got within about 200 meters, I put down the sniper rifle and picked up my battle rifle. She neared 100 meters and still kept on sprinting towards the Elephant. She finally reached the front of the massive vehicle and stopped with her hands on her knees, panting heavily. She then stood up straight and walked into the vehicle. As she did so her back was facing me and she was looking around at the interior of the Elephant as if she had never seen anything like it in her life. As she stood there I stood up and trained my weapon on the back of her head and said in a commanding voice, "Hands in the air now and turn around slowly." I knew that there was a 99.99 percent chance that she wouldn't understand me, but to my amazement she did what I said to a T. as she turned around she was met with the sight of a figure wearing black and grey digital urban combat camo and a black helmet with completely mirrored face guard, holding a weapon she had never seen before. She looked somewhat stunned at my stature because even through my armor and clothing she could tell that I was very muscularly built and about eight inches taller than herself. I jumped down from the top of the Elephant onto the catwalk just behind the cockpit and then down to her level from there. I then asked, "Can you speak English." She shook her head no and replied in English, "I speak Cornerian, and you speak very good Cornerian as well." "You are speaking English." I told her, which seemed to confuse her a bit. I then took her blaster weapon and put it in my mag-rail holster and put my rifle on my back, I then reached out my hand to shake her paw and apologized for the curt treatment at first but that I felt that I needed to be careful because my team and I had already been attacked once by a small group of three ships. She told me it was all right, after all, I did just save her life. She seemed to loosen up a bit when I shook her paw and apologized for her treatment upon us first meeting enough so to ask questions.

"So, what is your name exactly?"

"My name is John Carter; most people just call me John. What's yours?"

"My name is Krystal, with a 'K'. Thanks for saving me earlier."

"It wasn't that big of a deal, my team and I already got attacked by two other ones earlier today. They ended up about the same way as the one that tried to attack you though."

"Oh, I meant to ask you. Do you know anything of a small group of ships that are on the far side of the island? There were three ships and the group from those ships consists of a black panther, a grayish wolf, and a green chameleon."

"Yes, they were the ones that attacked us. Their all inside but unconscious in our medical facility. Our medics have tried to patch them up the best they can."

"I thought they would have been the ones that attacked you all when you said you were attacked already. Those individuals have actually become a notorious pirating group since the end of our last war in this system and our government has been trying to track them down and catch them ever since, so thanks in a way."

"Well, your welcome. I was rather nervous though that your government would have seen it as an act of war and not of self defense."

"No, our government in this system will understand, but I do have some more questions for you though. Do you mind?"

"No, not at all, its natural I suppose."

"Okay, umm, please don't take this the wrong way, but what exactly are you. You don't have a tail like everyone else in this system."

"Well, I figured this question would come up. I am a human, me and my team aren't from here. We came from a system really far from here, like on the other side of the galaxy called the Milky Way. What do you all call this system?"

"This system is called Lylat. All the planets here are inhabited by the diverse species from this system. What about your system, I mean is there any other species in where you came from."

"Well, until recently, no. but as of late a few species alien to our system have moved in and are somewhat sharing the habitable planets with us."

"Why as of late?"

"Because we fought a thirty year war with them because they tried to exterminate the human race."

"Oh, they sound like horrible individuals."

"Not all of them were horrible. Part of the alien race decided that it was worthless to try and exterminate an entire race so they joined us in the fight against the rest of the alien 'cult' they once belonged to."

"I'm sorry to hear that you and the rest of your race had to deal with that. Do you mind I contact my other team members?"

"No, just as long as you all don't try and kill us like the other group tried to do."

"Okay, I promise we won't," she chuckled and then flipped up her communicator and contacted the rest of her team who were actually now only about two minutes away. There were three more to her team but she was not the commander. The rest were all male and the only ones name I got was someone named Fox.

"While we are waiting for the rest of your team would you like to see the inside of the ship and meet my team?" she nodded and I pointed out the back of the Elephant towards a ramp that led up into the ships hangar bay. I led the way up into the hangar and once she came in and got a view of our vehicles and weapons, she became awed. She remarked that it looks like we came with enough to start a war. I chuckled and told her that we needed all of the vehicles and weapons just in case and our real reason for coming to this system was more exploratory and diplomatic than anything. We made our way to the chow hall and found my whole team eating dinner and they had apparently found my Yoo-hoo stash as well. As Krystal and I walked in my team members looked up and stunned at what they were seeing (even more so when Krystal began speaking to them in English), I introduced each of my team members to Krystal and vice versa, I also told them that more individuals from this system would be here in about a minute or so and to not freak out and try to fight any of them. They all nodded, looking somewhat dumbfounded and returned to eating and talking amongst themselves as Krystal and I exited towards the medical area. We arrived at the medical bay and walked in to see the three Starwolf members lying on separate operating tables, each of their chests slowly rising and falling as they breathed in and out. Krystal looked at some of the bandages that were covering a few places on each of the three members. She then turned to me and asked, "Why are their wrists bound to the tables edges?"

"Because we did not want them to wake up and try to attack us from within our ship."

"Oh, I understand, precautionary measures."

"Yeah, we just wanted to have a safe environment for us and them, so in short we suppressed the threat and isolated it."

She nodded and then said, "My team members should be here now, you want to go meet them?"

"Sure, I need to make sure that humans and Lylatians can coexist peacefully anyway."

"Oh, then, well, are you sure you want to meet my team?"

"Yeah, let's go."

So Krystal and I walked outside and I took off my helmet to meet the other team members. As I did this, Krystal looked at my head and face and remarked that I sounded much older than I looked. I told her that that was actually a complicated matter and that in reality I was 29 years old but I had only been 'lived' for 18 years. "How is that possible?" she asked. I then went into a quick explanation of cryogenics and cryosleep. She seemed to understand and I told her I'd show her and her team what a cryo tube was later, that it might help with the explanation a bit. Not even two seconds after I finished my quick little explanation, I heard the sound of and engine shut off. Krystal then said in a somewhat excited tone that her team was here. And ran out of the hangar down the ramp. I followed a bit slower and came into view of an orangish colored fox hugging Krystal and with a frog and falcon looking bird standing next to him and Krystal. The fox then saw me and pushed KrystaL behind him as if to protect her from something and drew his blaster, Krystal screamed "NO!!!" as a bolt of plasma left the front of his weapon. I had been in this situation before and it was nothing new to me. With lightning fast reflexes I threw on my helmet and matrix style dodged the plasma bolt and before the orange vulpine even knew what had happened, I had my battle rifle out and shot his blaster out of his paws. He seemed stunned at this and raised his hands up a bit, but still holding a menacing look on his face. I told the other two who were also standing there dumbfounded to drop their weapons as well, they did. After this short winded debacle, Krystal stepped out in front of the orange fox and told everyone, while motioning towards me, that this was her new friend and that I had saved her life from the dinosaurs that prowled this area. Fox looked stupefied as he heard this and I could tell that his face was turning a nice hued shade of red, even through his fur. After hearing this I put my rifle back onto my back and walked down the ramp while taking my helmet off. I got it off and walked up in front of the vulpine that had previously shot at me and reached out to shake his paw. He returned the gesture, but I gave him an extra hard squeeze and said, "John Carter, pleased to meet you." After I withdrew, he grabbed his right paw with his left whilst bearing a pained expression on his face. At this the falcon leaned over and whispered, just I could barely hear it, "Guess you shouldn't have shot at him, dumbass." Krystal then introduced me to the rest of the team, Slippy Toad, Falco Lombardi, and last but no least, the team leader, Fox Mccloud. She went on to explain how we met and what I did to the dinosaur that was trying to maul her and I was thanked by Fox for saving her. I then explained my teams and my business in this system and why we were sent here so urgently. Falco then remarked on what I was and that I sort of looked like an ape. Krystal glared at him, but is aid it was okay and that the proper terminology was a human, not ape. He then looked back at Krystal and said, "What, just wanted to know is all." Slippy, however, had not said anything this whole time, I believe he was shocked at how large of a man I am, seeing as he is only about four foot eleven. I finally spoke to him trying to break the ice. I said, "So Slippy, Krystal tells me that you're a mechanic/engineer. Would you like to come see some of our vehicles?" he did not give a verbal response, but I did get a nod out of him. And so the Starfox team and I walked into the hangar of my ship and Slippy's eyes went even wider than normally, never in his life had he seen such vehicles as these, but while he was interested in the vehicles, Falco had wandered over to the armory and was checking out our weapons. I left Slippy and Fox to look at the vehicles and walked over beside Falco, who was in awe of everything he was seeing. I asked him if he liked what he saw and like any typical guy replied with a hearty, "Hell yeah, but what kind of blasters are these." I chuckled and said, "Not blasters, guns." He looked at me quizzically and I set off to explain.

"You see, blasters use a battery to produce plasma which is then directed at its target via the use of small magnets. Guns use gunpowder, which is a mix of explosive chemicals inside of a casing called a shell, to propel a piece of metal called a round down a tube called a barrel at the target being aimed at. The round is rotating when it leaves the barrel because of spiraled grooves that are cut into the barrel's metal called rifling."

He nodded and then his eye caught a weapon that he could recognize anywhere, our M19 SSM rocket launcher. He instantly was drawn to it and picked one up saying, "I like the way your race thinks, one rocket launcher barrel just aint enough. Got to have a double barrel rocket launcher." I chuckled and said, "Yeah, that's one of my favorites too. You want one?" His face was almost like I just told a five year old that I'd give him the toy store and the candy store right next to it for free. He was almost stuttering he was so excited as he said, "R-rea-really." I nodded and said, "sure, we got plenty of 'em around here. You can even have a carry case and some rockets for it." He looked like he was about to cry from being overjoyed and I went and grabbed a rocket launcher carry case and another crate of twelve rockets and brought them back over to Falco. I then took the rocket launcher from him and put it in the case, closed it, and snapped it shut. I then pulled out a marker I had in my pocket and wrote on the case, 'from humanity to Falco Lombardi. Enjoy.' And he just had the biggest grin on his face that I had ever seen.

"Its got the instruction manual in there, you might want to read it before using it so you can get maximum enjoyment from it and you, for safety reasons." He nodded and I thought he was about to hug me but he gave me a waist level five/special handshake. He started to walk over to where the rest of the group was and show them what he got when all of the sudden, two more of those raptor things ran up into the hangar and squeal/roared, you know a dino noise. The first one began to charge Slippy, seeing as he looked most defenseless and was the closest one to the hangar door. As neared Slippy, jaws agape and ready to kill, Slippy screamed but the dinos jaws never found him, I had sprinted over to where Slippy was standing and threw the full force of my body into a punch that contacted and broke the raptors jawbone and then slid under its neck to the opposite side of it and severed its neck with my 26th century, titanium forged, diamond bladed KA-BAR. The second raptor did not take lightly to this and charged me this time, all the while screaming in that dinosauric tone. When it got to within about three feet of me and was about to lash out and bite, with jaws that could most certainly sever all flesh and crush any bone in their path, I swung in an upward stabbing motion and buried my knife into the bottom jaw of the beast, the eight and one half inch blade easily penetrating through the brain and back of the skull, the tip of the knife dark with blood and bits of brain matter sticking to it. The force of my upward stab was so much that the seven and a half foot tall mass of muscle flew over me and landed still in front of me as I had pivoted with it. I placed my boot on the neck of the beast and yanked my knife out, wiping the now stained blade on my pants leg until it returned to somewhat of its original silvery color. I then turned to the rest of the individuals in the armory, who by the way looked not only stunned that I had done that but still terrified at seeing how fast I had done it, and asked, "so, what'd ya think?" I did not get a response from any one of them, just silence, until, Fox finally piped up and said, "Can, uhh, you teach me how to do that?" All of us chuckled and I replied that I'd do my best if he was willing to learn. Me, seeing how it was getting late in the afternoon asked them if they would like anything to eat and to stay the night on the ship with us. They all said they would like to and we left, as a group, to go towards the chow hall for a late dinner. After dinner they all thanked me for my hospitality and I showed them to their rooms for the night. I then set off to go to my quarters for the night, thoughts flooding my mind.

My thoughts

"_Damn, this has been a long day. I wonder if it's always this dramatic in this system, if so, I'm gonna get a real good workout here. At least I've found out that the beings here are friendly and speak English, what did they call it? Cornerian. Yeah that's it. I wonder what type of government they have here; hopefully it's a republican-democracy. I need to get some rest."_


	7. Chapter 7 First Night, Second Day

Chapter 7- First Night, Second Day

I walk into my quarters and step into my washroom to take a quick shower before I head to off bed. As I get undressed and step into the shower, I couldn't help but think of what the other "animals" in this system are like and of questions to ask my newfound friends in the Starfox team. As my shower ends, I step out and get on a fresh pair of boxers, some basketball type shorts, and a light dark grey tee with the fox racing logo on the top back about six inches below the neck line and_ FOX_ written across the front of it, I didn't even think twice about what it said. I then left my washroom and climbed into bed, closed my eyes and let my thoughts wander about within the confines of my mind.

"_What exactly do we call this new race? What is their government like? Do they promote a military, or are they against it? My team better not try anything dumb while we are still in the process of trying to be diplomatic with this race. I wonder what foods, transportation, and society they have here, guess I'll find out tomorrow." _And with these final thoughts, I let rest take over my body for the night.

The Next Morning

I hold my wrist up in front of my face and glance at my watch, 0524 hrs. it read. I thought to myself for a second and decided that I should go ahead and get up to start making chow for my team and our guests, both uninvited and invited. I rolled out of bed, landed quietly on the balls of my feet, strode over to my closet area, pulled out a pair of urban digital camo pants, and put them on after removing the basketball shorts from my body. I then went and picked up my knife and belt off of the chair in the corner of my room, put both on, and made my way to the washroom. Once inside, I set to brushing my teeth and styling my hair in a somewhat slicked back but still spiky style (I'm still only eighteen, remember). I leave the washroom and quickly slide on a pair of black, boot length socks and walk out of my room towards the mess hall, not expecting to see anyone down there at this time, my assumption was wrong though. As I entered the eating area, I glanced around and saw a small, green figure sitting at one of the tables, fidgeting with something on the table top. I walked closer and nearly scared the piss out of him as I said, "what'cha doin' Slip'?" he jumped at hearing my voice and turned to see me looking down at him and at what he was messing with, it was one of our handheld radios and he had taken it apart and was looking at all of the inside components, apparently trying to learn how our comm. gear worked. He replied in a somewhat nervous nature, "I'm sorry, I didn't think you would care if I looked at one of your communication devices. I'll put it back together now." I looked at him and was nearly about to start busting out laughing, but held it in for his mental posterity and simply said, "Ya know Slip', you don't have to be so nervous all the time around me and my team. Just loosen up a bit, I could care less if you took that thing apart and I never knew, but I mean if you want to examine or look at somethin', just don't be afraid to ask, I wont get mad at ya, promise." He nodded and actually smiled a bit, upon seeing this I remarked that it was good to see something other than a terrified look on his face and he chuckled a bit. I then asked him if he was at all hungry. He nodded and I asked, "So what do like to eat." He went through his list of likes and dislikes and I found out he had a vegetarian type diet and set off to the large food storage area and came back with two cans of fruit, some granola stuff, a few different actual fruits and vegetables, and a cup of yogurt from the fridge. He looked over the foods and finally picked out a round, orange colored fruit, and examined it at about half an arms length.

"What do you call this?"

"That is an Orange, it's a sweet type of fruit but you don't eat the whole thing. You have to peal the bright orange part off of it first or it will taste really strange." He nodded and proceeded to ask what each of the other types of foods were that I had brought out. After I gave the best synopsis on what each were and the taste of each, he returned to the original choice he had of the orange and asked me how one would peel it. I took it from him and showed him how to do it without completely squishing and destroying the interior "meat" of the orange. He observed and finished peeling the rest of the orange by himself, and then remarked that it looked like the orange was in sections. I nodded and explained that it was, that that was how it grew as a plant. He then pulled a section from the orange and popped it into his mouth and began to chew it. He swallowed the first piece and exclaimed that it was one of the sweetest fruits he'd ever had, "Glad you like it," I replied and told him that I was going to go make breakfast for the rest of my team and maybe even the other Starfox members if he would help me figure out, from the foods that we had and what the others liked, what to fix. He agreed and followed me to the kitchen with orange in hand and happily eating it slowly enough to enjoy each piece.

"So Slip', what exactly are the food preferences of your comrades?"

"Umm, I know that Fox, Krystal, and Falco all eat meat, fruits, and vegetables, I think they will eat almost anything you put in front of them."

"Well that makes things easier. I didn't really get to learn their preferences last night at dinner, so this really helps. Thanks."

"No problem, ya need any more help?"

"Na, I got from here, but thanks anyway." He then left the kitchen and I got to cooking breakfast for my whole team and the Starfox team. I figured this morning was somewhat special so I made a wide array of foods; pancakes, eggs, and sausages amongst other things and set out orange juice, milk, and coffee with plenty of creamer. The fruits and things were still on the table from earlier so I just left them, not knowing if any one else would even eat them, but just in case. I finished making breakfast and by now it was about 6:30 am, so I decided to go and see about our uninvited guests. I left the mess hall and made the short walk down to the medical bay and was somewhat surprised to see that the three attackers were now awake and talking amongst themselves, which ended abruptly as I walked in.

"Good morning." I said as I walked into the area that they were lying on the tables in. I received no response, to my utter amazement. All three members of the Starwolf team just looked at me with stunned and dumbfounded expressions. Seeing that I was not about to get a response, I continued on talking to them, "In case you don't remember, you attacked us and we kicked your asses, what a great first meeting. Wouldn't you say, Mister O'Donnell?"

"How the hell do you know my name?"

"A friend told me." As hopped up onto a nearby counter to sit on, "Now you all are in somewhat of a bind if I do understand correctly. You are notorious space pirates, but are now no longer in space, not only that but are chained to tables inside of a landed ship, and on top of that, someone is here to pick you up and take you in to turn you in to the government."

"And who might that be, you." The wolf remarked, smartly.

"If I was you, and I'm not, I wouldn't be so cocky in your position and no I'm not taking you in. It will be a joint operation between Starfox and my team. Would you like some breakfast?" I received no response again, so I got up to leave and just told them that if they got hungry, to just yell if they heard footsteps in the hall. I then left the medical area and headed back down to the mess hall. Once I got there, there were already two of my team members eating in there at a separate table than Slippy. I walked over to them and asked if they liked the food, they both nodded and I said, "Good, now go enjoy it with our guest." I pointed towards the table that Slippy was at and Moore and Norris got up and went to sit down with Slippy, who had now put the comm. unit back together and was eating another orange. They went over to Sippy's table and asked if he minded if they sat with him and he said they could. I then walked over to Slippy's table and asked no one in particular if anyone else was up already.

"I didn't see anyone else Cap', but they should be here pretty soon," replied Moore. I nodded and asked Slippy what time the rest of his team members would be up. He looked at his watch and replied, "Maybe in about ten or twenty minutes."

"All right, I'm goin' up to the bridge for a while, in case anyone asks." I then left the mess hall and began waling towards the bridge. On my way there, a certain vulpine exited from his room and trailed me to my destination. Upon arriving in the bridge, I turned about and saw Fox standing in the doorway I had previously entered through.

"Morning Fox, what cha doin' up so early?"

"Oh, I uhh, couldn't sleep at all last night."

"Sorry to hear that, can I, ya know, help you with anything?"

"Yeah, umm, do you mind if I ask you a question?"

"No, I don't mind at all. I may even have a few questions for you later."

"Okay, I was wondering if you, umm, knew anything about dating."

"Like, how to ask a girl out on a date or what to do on a date?"

"Uhh, both?"

"I get it, you want to ask Krystal out on a date, but have no clue what to do or how to do it, do you?"

"Yeah, I've kind of lacked the right, how do I put it, skills and confidence, to ask her out. I just don't want her to say no."

"I get what you mean. I used to have a girl that I really liked back when I was in training to become a soldier, I mean I practically would do anything for her but I just lacked the confidence to ask her out because I didn't want to hear no. I never got the chance to though; she was killed in our platoon's first combat mission. Don't let that be you."

"Jeez, I never thought about it like that. I guess with being a merc, you don't have all the time in the world to do these things."

"Yeah, now back to you. What were you thinking about doing for a date with Krystal?"

"That's why I came to you; I have no idea where I should even start."

"Okay, first you have to ask her if she has anything planned. If not, then you ask her if she would like to join you for dinner and a movie maybe."

"Like what kind of dinner?"

"Whoa, you really have no idea what you are doing do you?" he responded with shaking his head no and I continued, "Well, its got to be a nice dinner, but not overly fancy. Something of a sit down dinner for two, maybe at a place where you would have a lunch meeting with a new business client. For a movie, huh, got me stumped on that one, but I could employ the help of a couple of my team members on that one. A couple of them have been on a few more dates in their lifetime than I." I then reach down to the intercom system in the ship and radio the chow hall, "Norris, when your done eating I need you on the bridge, no rush, just got a question."

"So you think that they will be able to help me with this situation?"

"Yeah, they're all pretty good guys and girls, they'll help you if they can." We stood there, Fox still asking me some questions about what to talk about at dinner and still how to approach the ever nerve wracking problem of actually asking Krystal out on the eventual date, waiting for Norris to arrive on the bridge. About five minutes later she showed up, looking like her cheerful self, and asked what I needed her for up here.

"Well, our new friend here is rather shy and wants to know the best way to approach the situation of asking a lady out on a date, oh, and by the way, Fox this is lieutenant Rachel Norris. Lieutenant Norris, this is Fox Mccloud."

"Well, what exactly does he want to know about a date?"

"He's wondering what type of movie is the best, in your opinion, to take a girl to see on the first date."

"Hmmm, I would have to say, for a movie, you need to take her to see a romance of some kind, yeah, romance films are the way to go, and they never fail." She said with a smile.

"Anything else you need Fox?"

"No, I think that covers it, but wait a second. Should I do flowers or something, ya know, to break the ice."

"No, then she'll know that you are taking her out on a date. Just keep it inconspicuous the whole time, and after the movie, go for a walk in a park or something."

"All right, I guess my work here is done, I'm heading back to the cafeteria, after all someone's gotta keep the rest of the crew out of the Yoo-hoo stash. You know if Mendoza gets a hold of 'em, he'll drink 'em all."

"Yeah, you should head on back there. Things could get pretty ugly if Mendoza got a big enough sugar high." After she leaves, Fox turns to ask me yet another question.

"Hey John, what are these Yoo-hoo things? I've heard y'all talk about 'em a lot ever since we got here."

"Well, it kind of started off as a joke. When I went into training, I would always get this drink called a Yoo-hoo with any meal I ate, so everyone quickly took note of this. When I was sent on my first solo mission, a couple of my buddies got me a crate of Yoo-hoos to take with me. That's basically how it all got started and ever since then, I bring a ton of Yoo-hoos with me whenever I go on a mission."

"Sounds like something Falco would do to me, but what exactly are they?"

"Oh, well, umm, do you know what chocolate is?"

"Yeah, it's made from a cocoa bean. It's made back on our main planet, Corneria."

"Good, you know what chocolate is, so Yoo-hoos are chocolate flavored drinks, they come in a glass bottle or aluminum can. Want to try one?"

"Sure, if you don't mind."

"Na, like I said, I got a ton of 'em."

"Hey John."

"Yeah."

"Thanks for helping me."

"Your welcome." Fox and I then left the bridge and made our way back to the mess hall to get Fox a Yoo-hoo and some breakfast. When we got there, everyone was already awake, eating breakfast and actually talking to the other Starfox team members, which I took as a good sign that humans and Lylatians might be able to coexist. I walked into the kitchen and got Fox a cold Yoo-hoo out of the fridge and handed it to him. He looked at it and gave a puzzled look at the cap on the bottle. "Here, you open it like this." I grabbed one for me and showed him how to grasp the cap and twist it open without slicing his fingers open. He nodded and followed suit, soon having his bottle open and contents ready to be drank. He lifted the bottle to his lips and took a shallow sip of the liquid and by his facial expression he approved of it. He took another gulp, stopped to take a breath, and exclaimed, "Man, I've been missing out. Wish we would have found out about you guys earlier on, cause this stuff is amazing." Fox and I then entered the eating area and sat down with the rest of the members from both teams and began to eat, talk, joke, and carry on friendly conversation.

About an hour and a half later

I was in the my quarters, looking through my digital combat journal and recounting all the times I had saved a fellow soldiers life and the times I could not. _"Damn it, if I had just done this or even that, maybe that soldier would be alive today. I could have saved him if I had gotten there sooner. I gotta stop beating myself up for this; there was no way it could have been stopped." _I was pulled out of my thoughts upon the negative aspects of my past as there was a light knock on my door. "Who is it?"

"It's Krystal."

"Come on in."

The door opened and she came in, "The rest of the team and I were wondering if you and your team would like to come back to the main city on this planet with us. Fox has just contacted our General and he has given Fox the clearance to allow you to land your ship at the main military base on this planet, we just were wondering if you and your team would want to come with us."

"Yeah, we will. You all can just load up your vehicles in our hangar and stay aboard until we get back to the city I suppose."

"Okay, I'll go tell Fox that you agreed to come back with us." She then left to go tell Fox and I got up to go get the rest of the ship ready to go to the military base.

About an hour later

"Are we completely prepped to go now?"

"Yes, I believe we are now. We can close the hangar door and proceed to the military base at these coordinates."

"All crew and guest members, we are now departing for the military base in the city. I will need Fox Mccloud on the bridge to help with direction. Stay clear of the hangar door it is closing, now." As I finished my statement, everyone throughout the ship could hear and feel a quiet, muffled rumble as the hydraulics in the door groaned under the stress of having to move a several ton door from a resting position. Fox then arrived on the bridge and I began to pilot the ship into the air, as there was no reason to leave the atmosphere for this short venture. He helped me guide the ship towards the mainland via his memory and distant landmarks and after about ten, or so, minutes of slow flight, the mainland came into view. I felt butterflies in my stomach as I gazed upon the mainland from just thinking about all the new individuals we would meet, we'd be able to meet a lot because of engine problem anyway. As we neared the city, Fox pointed to an area surrounded by a rather tall fence/wall and with quite a bit of activity going on, on the grounds within the premises of the fence.

"What's with all the commotion down there Fox?"

"Well, General Pepper contacted the military base here and word must have got out about you guys coming here, don't worry though, the military should be able to keep most of the press people away."

"So, all the commotion is because we are a new race here."

"Yeah, we haven't had a new race from outside Lylat ever since Krystal got here. The press coverage was almost this much with her and she's just one person, with nine of ya'll, press coverage is going to be insane."

"Oh great, crowds and cameras, just my luck."

"Why you say that?"

"Back on my planet, earth, I was hounded after every operation by paparazzi and 'fans' trying to pry into my personal affairs or get me to sign something. It got really annoying after about a week."

"Yeah, tell me about it. The same thing happens to us all the time. Falco's the only one who really enjoys it, I think, but the rest of us could without the unneeded attention, very rarely though it kinda' boosts our morale, but I see where you're coming from."

"Yeah."

A few moments After our short dialogue, we arrived at the military base and Fox directed me to a large hangar, which was designed for Corneria's largest battle cruisers but barely accommodated, from what I thought, our small ship. After setting it down within the hangar walls, I noticed that there were some small, rigid looking vehicles moving towards our craft on the ground.

"Hey Fox, what are those?" I asked as I pointed towards the vehicles that were moving towards the craft.

"Most of them are tanks and ground combat vehicles, don't worry though. It's just for security measures. That one right there is an armored personnel carrier, its coming to pick up Starwolf."

"Some of the uhh, vehicles are hovering. You all have hover transportation?"

"Yes, we have hover cars. The only vehicles that do not hover are our ground tanks and recreational vehicles such as our dune buggies in your hangar."

"Oh, that's cool. Its just that our last enemies entire vehicle arsenal was hover type, except for a few less effective versions which were actually ground contact type." He nodded nonchalantly and after I shut down the main systems on board, such as the engines, we all began to make our way to the armory/hangar area to disembark from the ship. We all arrived and I turned to everyone and looked them over to make sure they all looked somewhat presentable and proceeded to open the hangar door.

"Rawlings."

"Yeah Cap'."

"Leave your shotgun here." He nodded and reluctantly put his weapon back on the rack. The multi ton, hangar door finally struck the ground with a deep resonating thud and we began to walk down the ramp after the Starfox team members. To my surprise, there were camera crews and civilians already inside the hangar, but the military personnel had created a blockade which kept them at bay, filming, and wondering from a distance. Fox was surprised to see that general Pepper was there as well, as he had used the warp gate to arrive in record time after Fox contacted him. Fox walked directly up to the General and shook his paw. "Thank you, Starfox, for capturing the Starwolf team."

"Oh, no General, we did not capture the Starwolf team, they did." He said as he motioned to my team members and I.

"Oh, then thank you…uhh."

"John, John Carter." I said as I stepped forward to shake his paw and then turned to introduce the rest of my team and as I did so, he shook each of their hands.

"General."

"Yes Fox."

"I was wondering if you approved of John and his team accompanying us in the city, we would like to show them around."

"I see no problem with it, as long as they leave their weapons here and remain under you and your team's supervision."

"Yes General." Upon hearing this, I turned to my team and gave the signal to disarm and told them to return their weapons to the armory. I then turned to Fox and asked if he thought if the General would care if I kept my knife or at least my boot knife. He turned to the General and talked to him for a moment and then turned about saying that Pepper did not care if I had a knife but would not allow firearms, yet. I nodded and put my knife back in its horizontal sheath along the length of belt to the right side of my back. While I was doing this, Fox had been talking to General Pepper and pulled me out of my moment of concentrated action by calling me over to where he and the General were standing.

"John, uhh, the Pepper would like to compensate you and your team for bringing in Starwolf, he just needs a name for your team in order for the finance to go through."

"Okay, umm, all right, it'll be Helljumper Squadron."

"What does that name mean?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, it's something you have to see to believe."

"Okay, so General, did you get that name?"

"Yes, but due to them being new here I will have to put their credits on a card instead of an account."

"Uhh, General, could you manage to put the credits on nine different cards, like divided up equally."

"Yes, but why?"

"Well, I don't want to have to follow my team around every time they want too purchase something."

"Oh, I see, that makes a lot sense. I'll do that for you then and thank you again for bringing in Starwolf."

"Your welcome General." And with that he proceeded to leave, leaving Starfox and my team in the hangar with the many camera crews and civilians onlookers. Fox motioned for us to follow him and we began the long painstaking trek through the crowd to the rear of the hangar where we were to check in with the military personnel and get a temporary ID made. As we walked to our destination, I couldn't help but notice how racially diverse this place was, it seemed that I had to stop myself from staring on several occasions, but there were just so many different 'animals' that had flocked to see us. We finally made it to the back of the hangar and the leading officer stepped forward and shook my hand as he introduced himself and asked the name of our race.

"We are known as humans, it is spelled H-U-M-A-N-S."

"Okay, thank you, now please step in front of the backdrop, so we can get your picture." I did so and they took my picture, which afterwards, they asked my name, age, gender, and repeated the process with all of my other team members. After our entire group's ID's were made and given to each of us, Fox asked if we would like to see the city. I nodded but went ahead and asked the rest of my team if they would like to go with us, but to my surprise, only three others wanted to go with us, they were Moore, Bradford, and Espinoza.

"All right then, Fox are we in the city, technically?"

"No, we are about thirty minutes walk from the downtown area."

"Okay then, is there a rule of thumb against flying into the city?"

"Uhh, no, but why do you ask?"

"Cause I don't want to walk for thirty minutes. Rick, Chris, and Steph', you three are going to fly pelican 07, put a troop transport warthog on the back. Me and Starfox will be in pelican 09, we're going to do the same with a warthog. Be ready to go in ten minutes." After giving my instructions I got an, "Hoo-rah." From my three team members. All of us then walked back to the ship board hangar and proceeded to load up the pelicans and get ready to go into the city.

When we got into the ship's onboard hangar, Fox and Slippy asked almost in unison, "What are pelicans?"

"Well, they are the UNSC's main form of quick troop transportation within and without an atmosphere. Think of a flying APC."

"Oh, okay, so they are used to transport gear and soldiers fast, right."

"Yep, and I might need to get one of ya'll to help me fly ours. Will there be a place to land in the city?"

"Yeah, there is a public, civilian ship, parking garage type hangar near our hotel that we are staying at. You should be able to land them in there."

"Okay, and what about a ramp for ground vehicles, is there one of those at the hangar area?"

"Yes, there is a ramp for people and vehicles to exit out of the hangars upper levels." I nodded and jumped up into the driver's seat of a troop transport warthog and hit the ignition button causing the twelve cylinder, direct hydrogen injection engine to roar to life, slowly leveling off to a light, but still tough sounding, hum. "Man, that thing is awesome." Exclaimed Falco, as he saw the slight vibrations all over the warthog emanating from the beastly engine.

"Thanks." I said as I started to drive it towards the rear of pelican zero niner and parked it under the overhang on the back of the pelican, killed the engine, and jumped out to go get the rest of the pelican ready. I was trailed by the Starfox team members as I walked into the cargo hold area of the pelican. I then turned about and asked, "Which one of you flies the best?" Falco's hand went up as the rest of the team pointed at him.

"All right then, you can help me pilot this thing if I need it." He nodded and I walked into the cockpit part of the pelican and began to start up the jet propulsion engines located all around the ship and on the four nacelles. as the jets started up and I walked out into the cargo hold again, Falco informed me that this thing was the loudest flying craft he'd ever heard. I just nodded due to the fact that I could barely understand what he said anyways, but after a bit, the screaming of the jets subsided and we could now hear each other much better.

"Look out the back if you want to see something cool." They all turned as I hit the switch for the magnetic cargo carry to activate. we were only standing there a moment before the warthog at the rear of the craft began to levitate and rise up slowly until it made contact with the bottom of the pelican's overhang section, after which I waited for another moment and a green signal light at the rear of the craft came on, notifying me that the warthog was secured for flight.

"How did you do that?" Slippy, being the engineer/mechanic/tinkerer that he was, inquired of me.

"Magnets." Was my single response. I walked back into the cockpit, followed by Falco, and radioed the other pelican to see if they were ready.

"Pelican zero seven, this is zero niner, are you prepped for takeoff?"

"Roger zero niner, all systems go, ready for flight."

"Affirmative zero seven, follow my heading." With that I closed out the comm. channel, told the rest of the Starfox team members in the cargo bay to either hold on or take a seat on one of the two side benches. Fox remained standing and grabbed onto an overhead bar while Krystal and Slippy took a seat on one of the benches at the side of the cargo area, Falco took the copilot seat and remained ready to help if needed. Once every one was secure, I began to lift off of the hangar floor and turn the craft about to exit out of the hangar door. Upon exiting out of the ship's hangar opening, all the cameras and eyes of the people in the military's hangar area were on our crafts as we turned to exit the main military hangar door.

About ten minutes later

"All right, that is our hotel right there and that is the hangar about five hundred meters to the left."

"Okay then, pelican zero seven, this is pelican zero niner, the LZ is about five hundred meters to the left of the building in front of us, drop your warthog next to where I drop mine."

"Roger that, pelican zero seven, out." Our formation then proceeded to the 'parking garage' and I brought my pelican down to where the belly of it was about four meters off of the ground and hit the key to drop the warthog and half a second later, we heard the sound of the tires hitting the concrete and the suspension system taking the blow from the short fall.

"Uhh, John, your vehicle just fell off of the back of the pelican, was it supposed to do that?"

"Yeah, it's all good. I made it fall just now." After dropping it, I flew forward a bit and set down the pelican on the top floor of the 'parking garage' and then shut down the engines. After doing so I got up from the pilots chair and started walking back towards the rear of the pelican to get out and go see this city. The other pelican had just finished doing what I just did, had already landed, and was shutting down its engines. I walked out of the back, being followed by the Starfox members. I jogged on over to the warthog and climbed in the drivers seat, soon to be followed by two foxes, a falcon, a toad, as well as the other three members of my team. The Starfox team and I got into my warthog, Fox in the passenger seat, and my team members in the other one.

"All right Fox, you got the navigation job, lucky you." I said with a smirk.

"Huh?" But without answer to his inquisition, I took off, punching the gas, and doing a one hundred eighty degree, half donut, causing all of the individual's stomach's in my vehicle to suddenly jump and there palms to sweat. Falco on the other hand seemed to enjoy it quite a bit, even though he was in the very rear seat, and gave out, from what seemed as the best he could remember from earlier, a somewhat hesitant, "Hoo-rah," and kept laughing at the expense of Krystal and Sippy's expressions. I chuckled at this and looked in my rearview to se that my team members were close behind and keeping speed, I then looked at Fox, who apparently was apprehensive about the whole idea of being in a vehicle with wheels to begin with and tightly grasping the entry assist handle, on the underside of the roll bar, and the side of his seat. This again caused me to chuckle as I kept on driving down the ramp towards the 'parking hangar's' exit. As we neared the first turn in the ramp, I slammed on the brakes and executed a power slide around the curve causing Fox's face, even through his facial fur, ton turn a light shade of green. I slowed a bit in order to keep him from barfing and finally arrived at the exit to the hangar and waited for my team members to pull up beside us. When they did I informed them that we were heading off to the hotel just up spin from us and to behave road wise along the way, as I promised Fox that I would. He looked relieved and I pulled out into the roadway heading towards the hotel, it was a very short drive though, only about a forty five seconds long, at the end of which we pulled up at the front of the hotel and Fox showed me where to park at. We parked and disembarked from our vehicle, soon followed by the other vehicle and its occupants. While waiting for them to find a parking spot and join us, Falco decided to 'talk' to Fox a little about the excursion in the parking garage.

"I said shut up Falco, I was not scared."

"Oh really, Krystal, do you think that Fox was even a little scared of that little joy ride back there?"

"Well, I'd have to say that you did look rather worried Fox."

"Arrggh, I was not, I was just, just…"

"What, overly friggin' nervous?"

"(Exhales) Fine, maybe I was a little scared."

"I knew it, hahaha, Fox was terrified."

"Sorry Fox, didn't mean to give him any more ammunition than he needed."

"It's ok, I got a way to get him back, and it's going to knock his socks off." While Falco was basking in self glory, Fox stepped to the front of the warthog and made a short call on his comm. unit, after which he stepped back around to where I was and resumed waiting for my other team members. They finally got to where we were and we all began to walk around to the front of the hotel, to the main entrance. When we got around to the front, whoever was on the sidewalk stopped and gave me and my team members, strange/perplexed looks, seeing us for the first time. I heard a few say, "Look, it's those things from the news." But I shook it off because it was the first time they had seen anyone or anything like us. We entered the front of the hotel and, again, got strange looks from everyone inside. Fox then turned to me and asked if any of us would like to stay in the city over night at the hotel. I turned to my team and before I even asked, they all nodded yes.

"I guess we do, but will anyone care, you think?"

"No, no one will care, as long as you act civil. It shouldn't take too long for people here to get warmed up to ya'll anyway."

"Why's that?"

"You caught Starwolf." And with that statement, he walked up to the receptionist and asked for four more rooms. To his and our luck, four individual rooms had just opened up and they were less per night than the other rooms he had gotten previously. Instead of it being 480 credits a night, it would only be 360. He accepted the offer got the keycards from her; surprisingly all of the rooms were on the same floor as the Starfox team's rooms. We went up to our rooms and checked them out; they were all spacious for being single rooms and each one had a nice, big, plasma screen TV. Fox informed me that their rooms were just across the hall and to come and knock if we needed anything. I nodded and went over to my sofa and kicked back, my other team members had already gone to their rooms. As I was sitting on the couch, I couldn't help but notice that Krystal was string at my chest area with a puzzled look. I looked down and saw what she was staring at, it was the _FOX _written on my shirt front. Unexpected to me, she asked, "John, what is that for on your shirt?"

"Oh this?" I said, pointing to the word. She nodded and I proceeded to explain it. "Well, _FOX_ is the name of a company back on Earth, they uhh, make racing gear and apparel, like helmets and protective clothing for dirt bike and ATV racers."

"Oh, cause I was wondering if you had known Fox from before."

"Na, but I did know what a Fox was." I said, trying to further a conversation with Krystal.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"I expected you to ask that. Well, back on earth, I guess you could say that uhh, we have less evolved animals."

"I'm still a bit confused, you say less evolved, how do you mean?"

"It's kinda' hard to explain, but they uhh, walk on four legs still and not on two. They don't talk like you and Fox, nor do they have technology, but some of them are rather intelligent. They can learn things effectively. Hold on a second, I have my laptop in my pack I brought with me; it has some pictures of Earth and some of the animals there on it. Want to see?"

"Yes, I would like to see those pictures."

"Okay then, let me just this laptop going." I pulled out my silver laptop, opened up the screen, and got it booted up. (Authors note: think 26th century toughbook laptop). After which I took it over to where Krystal was sitting at the small kitchen bar and sat down beside her with the laptop placed in front of both of us so that we could both see it effectively.

"All right, these are pictures I have personally taken; this is my planet from space."

"It looks just like Corneria from space, except Corneria has less land mass it seems."

"And this is a picture of a wolf, this one is a fox, this is an eagle, and that is a frog/toad. See how they all stand on four legs and the eagle was flying, on it's own with no machinery type help." She nodded and asked if she could look at the rest of the pictures herself. I obliged and showed her which button to press to go on to the next picture. I then looked at my watch it was already about 1500 hrs. and I was getting a slight bit hungry, so I walked over to my small gear pack and pulled out a protein/carb bar and started to eat it, Krystal asked what it was and I offered her a piece to try. She took it and seemed to like it, but told me that it had a bit of a peculiar taste to it, I nodded and told her that it took a while fro me to get used to the taste as well. All of the sudden, Fox walked back into my room and quickly looked over to Krystal who was intently observing the pictures I had in my files.

"John, come out here real quick, there's someone I want you to meet." Before I could respond he was out the door and I had no choice but to follow him, once out in the hallway I was met with the view of a pink feline and another white one next to her, again, I received the same shocked looks from both of them as they gazed upon my masculine form. I put out my hand to shake the pink feline's paw and she reluctantly reached up to return the gesture. "How do you do, I am John Carter. Everyone just calls me John though."

"I'm fine, thanks, my name is Katherine Monroe, but everyone just calls me Katt and this is my sister Alex Monroe, we're good friends with Fox and his team, well at least, I am." I nodded and shook Alex's paw and noticed that both her and Katt seemed to be enthralled with my muscular arms and forearms. Right after I noticed this, Katt asked, "May I feel your bicep?"

This question took me by surprise a bit but I agreed to let her. I flexed it and she poked it at first with her forefinger and then, somewhat hesitantly, squeezed it with her paw, very shortly after, her sister followed suit and exclaimed that my bicep felt like a rock. She said this rather loudly and Falco walked out of his room, not paying attention to who was in the hall at first and began to say, "Who feels like rock, it wouldn't be me woul…" his speech was cut off as his eyes came to rest on a certain feline, a certain pink feline that is.

"K-Katt, what are you doing here?"

"Oh, hi Falco, just enjoying the local life, you?" at seeing Katt and hearing her voice, Falco nearly fell backwards. Fox then leaned over to me and said, "Told you it would knock his socks off."


	8. Chapter 8 Second Night

Authors Note: People, reading without commenting does not help me. In short I need to know what you think of it. Only four people have commented and their comments somewhat helped me, thank you four people. Now for the rest of you, comment!!! If you are reading this story regularly, then you definitely have enough time to write a two sentence comment, at minimum, think about it. Give me some darn advice, please. I can't write a friggin' story if I don't know what my readers think. You help me, please. Just so you know, I did try to use the four people's advice in their comments, if you comment, unless your advice is crap, I'll try to use it. Almost forgot, **I DO NOT OWN ANY RIGTHS TO FOX RACING COMPANY OR KA-BAR COMPANY. I AM NOT AFFILIATED WITH THEM IN ANY WAY.**

Chapter 8- Second Night

"What's the matter Falco, you nervous?"

"I, I uhh, no. I'm not nervous; it's just that I umm…"

"Are really surprised to see me?"

"Yes, yes that's it, wait what. I don't look nervous do I?"

"Actually Falco, I'd have to agree with Fox on this one, you look a nervous wreck."

"Ha ha, very funny John. I'd like to see you around a pretty lady for once."

"Well, I'm pretty sure that I'm standing next to two "pretty ladies", and you don't see me acting like you." At this Falco was speechless, he knew it was true; I was standing next to both Katt and Alex, but wasn't nervous as anything. He just turned away and went back to his room as Fox, me, and both Monroes chuckled at my comment.

"You guys want to come into my room for a while?"

"Yeah, I think we all will, I wanted to see what Krystal was doing earlier anyway." So all four of us walked into my room and Fox went to sit next to Krystal at the kitchen bar and see what she was doing, of course she was still happily looking at the numerous pictures on my laptop.

"What ya' looking at Krystal?"

"John let me look at pictures from his planet. They have some strange wildlife there, but most of all of the creatures in it resembles races from Lylat, see look, that's a fox."

"Cool, it looks like me, but doesn't walk like me. Are there any other kinds of animals there?"

"Yeah, here's a wolf, an eagle, and a toad. There are plenty of other pictures of other creatures too."

"Are there any cats?" asked the pink furred feline, who was now standing in my hotel room sort of halfway in between where I was on the couch and where Fox and Krystal were at the bar.

"Yes, I think saw one earlier in here a couple of pictures back. Ah ha, here it is." Katt then walked over to the computer and looked at the screen.

"Cool, it has, like cat features, but walks differently than Alex and I. do you think that we would ever be able to visit your home planet John?"

"Maybe, as soon as me and my team figure out how to fix our hyper drive engine. Without it, we can't get back to where we came from.'

"Oh, well maybe Fox could pull some strings and get someone on Corneria to help you all repair it."

"That would help a lot probably, but still it will most likely be a year before we get it fully operational again." Katt nodded and went back to looking at pictures of Earth with Fox and Krystal. After a couple of minutes of silence, Krystal piped up and asked, "John, what are you doing in this group of pictures?" I got up and walked over to the computer and looked at the screen.

"Oh that, it's a recreational activity called muddin'. Basically you get a car or jeep like in the picture and go drive around in a big mud puddle with a bunch of friends, it's kind of like a way to hang out and just have fun."

"Looks like fun." Fox said with a bit of a look of longing to do something like it one day.

"I could take you some time, but you'd have to promise not to freak out and throw up all over me."

"Well why would I do that?"

"Cause you almost did in the parking garage."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot."

"No prob', but you wont throw up if I take you muddin' will you?"

"No, I won't, I promise."

"Okay then, you'd just have to tell me of a place where there's mud and that is not off limits to vehicles." He nodded and went back to looking at the pictures as the rest of the group at the table was doing. After about an hour and a half, Katt got tired of the picture looking process that was going on as had Fox, who had fallen asleep about thirty minutes earlier and laid his head down on the counter top and drifted off to sleep. Katt however did not do this, she just got up and excused herself and then stepped out of the room, I just assumed she was going back to her room for the evening though and let the thought pass on by. Alex was still sitting next to Krystal, who seemed determined to read every file and look at every picture that pertained to the planet Earth on my laptop. Alex, however, did not have the drive though to keep on with the learning of where I came from, got up from her seat, stretched, and came to sit down beside me on the couch where I had been reading a newspaper and looking through a science magazine that was on the coffee table.

"Do you mind if I flip on the TV?"

"No, I don't mind." I said as I briefly looked over at her. She then picked up the remote, flipped on the TV, and started to scroll through the channels. She finally found one that she liked and it seemed to interest me too, as I set down the magazine and leaned back on the sofa to watch the movie on the screen. It seemed to be, kind of like a Sci-Fi romance, but I didn't care, I wanted to learn all about this race and had plenty of time to do it, so I just set there and watched the movie. I was surprised at how incredibly long the movie was, by the time it ended, it was already almost seven PM. Alex had fallen asleep on the couch and the rest of the group had already left, Fox and Krystal most likely to go on their date and Katt, well I wasn't quite sure where she had gone to. With that thought, I picked up the remote and started flipping through the channels to see what was on. After a while of this, I came to a channel that had _**Cornerian News Report**__**: New Race Comes to Lylat **_at the top of the screen and assumed that it was talking about my crew and I. I set down the remote and began watching the TV to see what they would say.

"So, General Pepper, what do you personally think of the new race that has arrived here?"

"Well, I think that, just the same as in the past, we can get along with them and vice versa. They may even prove a valuable asset to this system."

The reporter nodded and then asked, "You say that they could be a valuable asset. In reference to that, are the rumors true that the, human crew has captured the infamous Starwolf team?"

"Yes, they did, I was mistaken, at first though, in believing that Fox McCloud and his team had captured them. As a matter of fact, the humans are under the watch of the Starfox team for the time being on the planet Aquas and they along with the humans will be moved to Corneria in a matter of days for scientific purposes."

"What exactly do Corneria's scientists plan to do with the humans?"

"Well, as with every new alien race before, they wish to test them on DNA, body composition, diseases, physical ability, etc." The reporter nodded again and continued his barrage of questions on General Pepper. I kept on watching the news, not entirely listening to what was being said, but after about an hour or so of watching it, one question picked up my attention.

"General Pepper, do you think that humans and lylatians will be able to peacefully and effectively coexist?"

"That is a difficult question at the time, but from what I have seen so far, my answer will be a somewhat undecided yes, simply due to the fact that we have not seen how they interact with Lylatians and vice versa, but yes, I do."

"Okay then, thank you for your time General Pepper, I hope to see you again soon."

"Thank you as well." The news ended, I flipped off the TV, and got up slowly and quietly so as to not wake up Alex, went over to the kitchen area, got on my laptop, and began looking at pictures of my past, friends, family, mentors, and childhood places that I had lost with the attack of the covenant. I came to a picture of me and my dad hiking in the woods near our house, my mom was behind the camera. I remembered back to that day.

"_Son."_

"_Yeah dad."_

"_I've been thinkin' about this for a while and I have finally decided that you are old enough to have this." He pulled his KA-BAR, the same KA-BAR that I used to save Slippy's life, out of its sheath and handed it to me, the sharpened part glinting in the sun against the rest of the carbon colored blade._

"_Are you serious dad? You love this knife."_

"_Yeah I know, but it is time for you to have it. You have already expressed to me that you want to be a mercenary and every good merc has to have a good knife at his side, so here son, I want you to have it. Take care of it, treat it with respect and it will get you through any thick situation, as long as you use your head." I thought back to what he said two weeks later when I joined the Marine Corps. I never thought what he had told me would have so much bearing in my life_. I was pulled away from my thoughts as I glanced over to the couch upon hearing slight movement. As I looked over there, my gaze fell upon the sleeping white feline lying atop the sofa. As I was looking at her I mentally slapped myself for staring, _"Geez, what am I thinkin', I must be going insane. There's no way she would like me, at all. I'm kinda, like not her type. Stupid idea, John you got to control yourself."_ But yet again I ended up catching myself staring, yet again and repeated the same process as before, but this time picked up my room key and stepped outside the room to try and find something to do. Once in the hall, I looked to my left and saw the elevators that we had rode up on and to my right was a public outdoor balcony, I chose to go onto the balcony. As I was walking towards the balcony, I passed Falco's room and noticed the DO NOT DISTURB hangtag on the door handle. Not really thinking anything of it, I kept on walking until I reached the balcony. Once out on it, I took in a breath of fresh air and sat down, taking in the sights and sounds of this alien, to me, city. I would watch an individual walk from one place to another, a young, male cheetah walking towards a restaurant with his very apparent girlfriend holding his hand, a young kit running down the sidewalk with a friend, and an older looking elk casually strolling towards a park. All these sights reminded me of Earth and other human colonies so much, except for the lack of humans here. I spent about two whole hours on the balcony, mostly in deep thought, gut a fair amount observing the citizens of Aquas go about their business at this late hour, I actually thought it fun to watch the streets slowly lose numbers of people as they slowly retreated into their homes at the onslaught of the ever progressing night.

"So, how long you been out here?" I looked back to see familiar figure of certain orange vulpine looking down at me.

"About two hours." I said glancing at my watch, "Where were you at?"

"Well, Krystal and I finally went out on a date."

"I knew it, so how was it man, you gotta tell me, I swear I won't tell Falco though." He smiled and said, "Okay, I'll ya'." he then pulled up a chair, sat to the side of me, and began his tale.

"Well first, we went out to dinner at a really nice restaurant, then we went to see a movie like you advised, and lastly we went for a leisurely stroll in a nice park, all the while we got to talk and learn things about each other we had never known. How'd your evening go over?"

"Pretty boring actually, I spent most of it watching TV and out here, just watching the city. It reminds me a lot of human planets ya' know, I mean with the way things operate here and how people interact." He nodded and we just sat there for a little bit looking out at the city, with its now virtually completely empty streets. As Fox stood up to go back inside and to bed, we both heard someone with a feminine voice yell out, "HEEEELLLLLPPP!!!" I instantly went defensive and looked down over the guard rail to see a woman being pulled into an alleyway by several guys. Without so much as a word, I took off through the doors back into the hotel and scrambled down the four flights of stairs to the ground floor. Upon reaching the ground floor, I turned and sprinted full speed out the side door of the hotel and towards the source of the sound of distress I heard earlier. Upon reaching the alley, I stopped and peeked around the corner to see what the odds were against me, three guys and from what I could tell one had a pistol aimed at the woman, who now looked scared as hell. I prioritized the threat in my mind and decided to take the one with the gun first followed by the other two. With that plan in mind, I quietly rounded the corner and snuck along the wall towards the armed individual. When I got relatively close, I realized that this was going to be an attempted rape, but not if I had anything to do about it. I snuck up behind the armed person and grabbed around his throat with my left arm, instantly bringing my knife to his throat with my right. He dropped his weapon and the subsequent noise attracted the attention of his friends, the one to the left pulled out a blaster and fired it, obviously not knowing I was still holding his comrade, and struck the man I was holding in the chest, instantly killing him. Fox was now making his way to the scene and just as he neared the alley entrance, the flash of a blaster caused him to stop dead in his tracks, him fearing the worst had happened. Back in the alley, however, I had now disarmed the second gunman and was in a fist fight with the two left. One pulled a knife and attempted to stab me with a strong downward blow, but I grabbed his wrist and redirected the force of the stab intended for me, into his friend's forehead. The shock of inadvertently killing his friend stunned him for a second and I took that time to throw a strong punch to his throat, causing him to fly back a bit and fall to the ground in crumpled heap. Fox heard this and slowly walked into the alley expecting to see me face down in a puddle of blood with a group of gangsters standing around laughing at my dead body; instead he got an entirely different view. Three rough ass, SOB's, lying dead on the ground, I had killed the third without knowing it with my punch, seeing as how it was enough force to shatter his vertebrate and sever his spinal chord. I turned to see him walking into the alley very cautiously, but paid no attention and turned back around to tend the woman who had been attacked. As I helped her up off of the ground she said, "Thanks, I don't want to think about what those guys were going to do if you hadn't showed up," And gave me a small peck on the cheek.

"Hold on, your voice sounds very familiar, is that you Alex?" I asked, not being able to see very well in the dark.

"Yes, it is, thank you so much." She said again, starting to sob now.

"Don't worry, its okay." I said as she hugged around me and buried her face into my chest. Her fur brushing up against my arms and the tips of her ears on my neck caused slight shivers to be sent up my spine. I shook off these feelings though as she said, although somewhat muffled thorough her face being in my chest and her sobbing, "No, no it's not okay; I shouldn't have been so careless. I let my guard down for too long," I then motioned for Fox to come over and help me comfort her a bit. He walked over and spoke soothingly to her and it seemed to calm her down a bit. We all three then made our way back towards the hotel. When we got up to our floor, Fox's somewhat cheery expression left abruptly as he saw the DO NOT DISTURB sign on Falco's door handle.

"Alex, where is Katt?" he asked.

"Uhh, I'm not sure; she didn't tell me where she was going."

"Well I'll bet anything that she's in here, well that throws a kink in my plan."

"Why's that?" I asked.

"Cause I was supposed to room with him. And now him and Katt are, well Ya' know, just…aarrggghhh and Slippy's already asleep."

"Well you could room with me, I guess."

"Well what about me? Katt has our room key in her pocket, and I'll bet anything her pants are in there."

"Umm, well, you'll have to room with me and Fox then, you'll get the bed, Fox will get the couch, and I got the floor."

"You don't have to sleep on the floor John, I'll take it. You've already shown my team more than enough hospitality."

"No, I insist, besides, I won't mind it a bit. You're taking the couch, no ifs, ands, or buts about it."

"Okay." With that we all walked into my room, Alex to the bed, Fox to the couch, and I just grabbed a little throw pillow and blanket and lay down on the floor. After we all got situated, it was very silent for a while until Alex said, "Goodnight." This was repeated by Fox and I and all was silent again for another few minutes.

"John?"

"Yeah Fox."

"How did you learn to fight like that?"

"Uhh, intense training I guess?"

"Oh, well goodnight."

"Goodnight." And as my eyes closed, my mind opened to memories, distant and close, pleasant and unpleasant.

Authors note: Oh dang, will there be somethin' between Alex Monroe and John Carter. Ya' never know.


	9. Chapter 9 Questions of a War Torn Soul

Chapter 9 Questions of a War Torn Soul

"_Where did I learn how to fight like that? When I arrived at Spartan training it was too late for them to teach me all of the hand to hand combat skills that the other Spartans had learned. Was it my dad? No, it wasn't him, that's weird cause I always had better hand to hand skills than the other Spartans, even 117. I just wish I knew how, wait a second, when I was about to go into my first cryo sleep session, I was told that the resident scientists were going to use me as the first test subject for a new teaching process, although I would not be told or even know what I learned, I would, most likely, if the procedure worked, be able to recall what was learned without even realizing it and use it. That's what they did, they taught me how to fight, and I bet my dad had something to do with that. I figured it out, that's how I learned it, and they tested me because of my immunity to REM sickness. Damn, now that's cool. What time is it?" _I opened my eyes and glanced down at my watch as I illuminated the aqua colored backlight of the face, it read out 0317 hrs.

"_Whoa, I've been awake for a long time, maybe I should try to get some sleep now." _And with that thought, I closed my eyes and drifted into a deep sleep. It however was not restful, my memories of the past came to visit and raid my mind once again.

"_John, help me, please!!"_

"_Hold on, I'm on my way over to your position. Frigate ship Athens, this is Spartan 205, my squad and I are pinned down, two casualties and three injured. Requesting airstrike on bearing delta four seven niner, west vector."_

"_Affirmative 205, airstrike in one minute. We are sending pelican three four eight for evac."_

"_Roger that Athens, we will be at LZ marked with orange smoke. Please be advised, hostile area, LZ is hot. Pelican three four eight, proceed to LZ following airstrike."_

"_Roger 205, holding until further notice."_

"_Aaaahhh, I'm hit. Sir we can't hold this position much longer."_

"_Here, take this, give me your rifle." He did so and I jumped up over the short concrete wall we were taking cover behind and opened up full auto on the enemy that were trying to progress on our position. Many small grunts fell in bloody heaps, but as for the larger ones, I was going to have to get creative. I ducked behind a concrete pillar and proceeded to reload my automatic version of a battle rifle, while doing this, however, an elite managed to run up and attempt to melee me square in the head with the butt of his plasma rifle. He barely missed and hit the concrete pillar behind me as I ducked and threw all of my weight into a punch, making contact with his barely armored ribcage, feeling a satisfying crunch under through the titanium battle armor that covered most of my gloves. He barely seemed phased as he threw a punch at my chest, catching me off guard and allowing him to make contact with my chest armor. Even through my armor, I felt the massive blow, but kept my calm and proceeded to keep fighting. Before he knew what had happened, my knife was lodged in his throat and being pulled sideways so as to sever the rest of the vital arteries within its muscular neck region, sending spurts of purple blood spewing out, onto me and the surrounding area. As the fight finished, a voice within my helmet resounded, "Airstrike in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, all personnel clear delta four seven niner, west vector, four, three, two, one, initiating strike." All of the sudden, blindingly bright streaks of light tore through the sky, accompanied by a deafening boom as each of the three six hundred ton, tungsten carbide, osmium cored, MAC rounds slammed into the ground, leaving destruction and craters on an unprecedented scale. It felt as though three separate earthquakes decided to happen in succession and I was nearly shaken from my feet, but managed to just barely catch myself as the tremors passed under my feet. I ran back to the wall and quickly cleared it, throwing an orange smoke grenade in the process and providing cover fire for my squad as the pelican neared the ground, spun around, opened its rear bay doors, and my troops began to pile in, carrying their, my, fellow injured and dead soldiers bodies. As the last of my squad members passed by me, he got hit in the back by a plasma bolt from an overhead banshee and hit the ground, screaming in pain, his helmet coming off as he made contact with the soil. _

"_C'mon soldier, you're not dying today!" I said as I picked him up and heaved him onto my shoulder, fireman's carry style. As I was about to pass by his helmet, I saw something in it that made me lean down as I was running and pick it up. We then boarded the pelican and its rear doors hummed shut as the pelican itself began to take off._

"_I need a medic now!" I said looking down at the wound on my squad members back._

"_Sir, thank you, but may I see my helmet please." I looked into his helmet and just above where his name was on the inside band was a picture of his girlfriend._

"_Sir…John… John, _John." I awoke with a start and startled Fox and Alex both when I had my knife out and to Fox's neck before either could blink. I realized who it was and dropped my knife, myself falling back onto the floor, hands on my face.

"John… you were… rolling back and forth just now, you were having a nightmare." I looked up to him and simply said, "I couldn't save them all, they died… they died under my leadership, my squad… all gone."

"John, its okay, you don't need to beat yourself up about it, you can never save everyone, even those you care about most."

"You're right, I can't let this affect me, can't let it get to my head." I glanced at my watch real quick and noticed that it was already 0530 hrs. and said, "I think I'm going to go for a walk for a while."

"This early? You can't be serious."

"Yeah, I usually get up at this time anyway. I'll only be gone for a while."

"Well, I'm coming with you then, don't want you to get into trouble with anyone." I nodded, got up, put my shirt and boots on, and Fox and I proceeded to walk out of the room, only to be met in the hallway by reporters, camera men, and Starfox fans, who had apparently been there all night. They were interested, not in Fox and company as I had expected, but what had taken place last night in the alley, which apparently someone had caught on video on a home camera and turned in to the resident news broadcaster, who now, along with some police officers, wanted ask me a few simple questions. Alex saw the commotion from inside the room and walked out into the hall, only to be bombarded as well by questions of all sorts as well.

"Sir, what led you to come to the aid of this feline last night?"

"She needed help."

"What was going through your mind as you approached the aggressors?"

"To defend whom needed help."

"Sir, what would you say you felt most upon attacking the aggressors?"

"Fear that if I did not win the fight, that they would hurt an innocent individual." Those were just the starting questions, more were about to be asked, but Fox managed to get them to stop temporarily with the statement that now was no the best time to ask questions. Alex stayed in the hall to answer questions as Fox and I made our way down the hall away from the crowd and towards the elevators and hotel exit. Once outside, he pointed in the direction of a small park and we began walking towards it, me taking in the sights and sounds of Aquas as it was waking up. When we arrived at the park, I noticed that there were a few other 'animals' walking around, enjoying the early morning view. As we walked along, I finally spoke and said, "I have an answer to the question you asked me last night." He looked at me puzzled at first, but then said, "Oh, the fighting question, yeah I remember."

"Well, you may believe me or not, but I learned to fight like that in sleep." This caused a very puzzled look form him and he said, "What, you were asleep when you learned how to fight like that."

"Yes, I think I was. I was told that I was part of a test, to test a new method of teaching things to soldiers. They chose me because of an apparent defect I had that was not like other humans."

"What was it?"

"I wouldn't get what is called REM sickness. REM sleep is deep sleep in which you dream, has Krystal told you of the cryo sleep I described to her?"

"A little, she talked to me about it on our date last night. Why?"

"Because that was part of the defect, I could go into cryo sleep for many years even and the resulting deep sedation would cause me to go into REM sleep for the whole time, so in essence, I could have a dream that was years long. However when a normal human was awakened from cryo sleep, the resulting fast shock of coming out of such a long REM period would cause them to experience extreme nausea, disorientation, and they would become violent quickly as they were confused to where they were. In my case, there were no side affects whatsoever of waking me quickly from cryo. That's why they chose me for the test."

"Well, what was the test?"

"I don't know, it's just a hunch, an idea right now. There are a lot of things about my life that I don't know for sure, things that I just have hunches about, things that I'll have to find out the hard way maybe, and things that would probably better be kept a secret. All I know, for sure, is that I was trained to be the best and graduated from training second best, even with all the odds stacked against me. There was no way I should have even lived through my training." Fox just nodded and he and I walked about the city for another two hours, talking, asking answering questions of each other, and me still taking in the sights of a planet with only nine humans on it, but yet still entirely populated, it just blew my mind.


	10. Chapter 10 A New Task

Chapter 10 A New Task

**Approximately Seventy Two hours later: Cornerian Capitol City, Main Military Base.**

"Okay mister Carter, this will only take a second, but it may sting a little." I nodded and flexed my forearm muscle as the scientist in front of me inserted a needle and drew a vial of blood for testing.

"Thank you, now if you and your team would, please follow me to the main medical center." We did so and upon arriving at the main medical area, were met by a plethora of white lab coated, scientists and some familiar faces as well, our friends the Starfox team. I gave each of them a friendly nod as we walked by, but something caught my attention on the far side of the room. A group of about seven scientists were examining several scans, with rather quizzical expressions on their faces. The lead scientist, one, Beltino Toad, led us over to the group of baffled scientists. To my amazement, they were not puzzled at our anatomy or anything else regarding organic tissue about us, they were puzzled by my scan. In the rest of my team members' scans, there was a dark spot in the head area, which was the standard issue neural implant for all UNSC soldiers, but in my scan, there was the regular dark spot, but it was accompanied by another dark spot, roughly the same size, just underneath the neural implant.

"Mister Carter, do you have any idea what this may be?"

"No, I do not." I said after briefly looking over the scan results and comparing it to my other comrades' scans. "Do you?"

"Well, we are certain that it is not organic, it seems to be similar in functionality to the neural implant in you and your team members, but there is far more activity within this one." Beltino said as he pointed to the second dark spot. "It actually seems to have the same type of electronic activity as a computer, which is baffling us. We don't know what it does or why its there."

"I was never informed of it either. I have no idea its purpose. Are you sure it was not a scan obstruction?"

"Yes, the entire area was cleared of possible interference systems, but since you don't have any info on it, that brings us to our final examinations of you all. Physical capability and, dare I say, reproductive system structure, that is if you consent to it of course."

"Yes I suppose we could handle that, but only once."

"Very well then, would the four of you please go with my assistants, they will take you to have your, final scan/inspection and if you five would come with me, I will take you to the physical testing area." We followed Beltino, also being trailed by the Starfox team, to a room with weight, machines, and all manner of diagrams on the walls of various species muscular anatomies. Briefly looking over some, even from a distance, I determined that the races in Lylat had, more or less, the same anatomy as humans did.

"Mister Carter, would you consent to be tested first?"

"Yeah, I'll go first."

"Okay then, please step up onto the conveyor and remove your shirt." I did so and he placed little anodes all around my chest and back to monitor my organs as I ran on the treadmill.

"Okay, I'm beginning the test now; all you need to do is run on the conveyor until you cannot keep up with it any longer. Every minute it will increase speed by half a kilometer per hour and gain a one percent incline. When you can no longer run on it simply slow your pace and the automatic shutdown safety release lanyard will turn end the test. Any questions?" I shook my head no and the treadmill started up at half a kilometer per hour. A minute later it sped up to a slightly faster walking pace and gained a one percent increase in incline, creating a barely noticeable hill. These steady increases went on for about twenty minutes, by which time everyone else in my group was being tested. Fifteen more minutes passed and I was now at a brisk pace of seventeen and one half kilometers per hour up a thirty five degree hill, but I kept going strong, whilst my team mates began showing signs of fatigue. Five more minutes passed and I was running at twenty kilometers per hour up a very steep, forty degree, hill. Another five minutes and the computer on the treadmill notified me that it could not go up any more incline, so it would increase the speed at one kilometer per hour every minute. Beltino heard the warning and came over to my treadmill, standing in awe at what he was seeing. After eleven and a half more minutes, I fatigued out and stepped off of the machine, which then stopped accordingly and flashed my ending time, speed, and last incline. Beltino looked over the results, shocked. I had been running for fifty six and a half minutes, reached a top speed of thirty three and a half KPH, sustained, up a forty five degree hill. He looked at me, stunned, not believing what he saw, however, I heard my team members behind me whispering amongst themselves, "I told he was one of them. You didn't believe me."

"He can't be though, where's his armor suit then, I've never heard of a Spartan without MJOLNIR armor on. Don't they have to, like wear it all the time or something."

"She's right, I am a Spartan. ya' caught me."

"Ha, I told you Mendoza, you owe me forty credits when we get back." I smiled and turned back around to face the Starfox team members and Beltino, Slippy was standing next to his dad, peering at the results of my most recent test as the assistants finished our other physical capability tests.

"John, what is a Spartan?" Krystal asked me as we all exited the physical testing facility together.

"Hmmm, a Spartan is the toughest soldier that was ever trained, that's about all I can describe it as. A Spartan is trained to never lose, think fast, have incredible strength, and to protect their team and themselves." Was my to the point and matter of fact reply. She nodded and all of us were silent until we arrived at the outside of the room in which the reproductive system tests were being held, at which time, a slight chatter arose among the group.

All the sudden, as we were waiting outside the double doors, Corporal Jennings walked out of the room, a somewhat distressed/agitated look across his face. He walked straight over and sat down beside me saying in a barely audible tone, "They can scan me, run me, maybe even poke and prod me, but they aint messin' with my dick." A smirk went across my face and I leaned back in my chair chuckling rather loudly.

"What, what's so funny John?" Fox asked me as I received puzzled looks from the rest of the group in the waiting area.

"Oh, nothin'." I said as I looked back at Jennings who was still sitting next to me, now fuming red at my reaction. Apparently he had been serious in what he was saying.

After about fifteen more minutes of waiting, the rest of my team members walked through the same double doors that Jennings had previously burst through. The tests were complete; we could now go and enjoy the city life that Corneria had to offer until we had to meet General Pepper that afternoon. Fox and the rest of us left the Military base via the front entrance and walked over to the three, chauffeured limo's that were waiting out front for us. Slippy stayed behind with his dad, so that was one more space, but there were still quite a few of us, the Starfox team consisting of Fox, Krystal, Falco, Katt, and Alex who had just previously asked to and were admitted to join, the eight of my crew, and me. That equaled out to fourteen of us, thankfully though, each limo held five comfortably. We divided into three groups and piled in the limos with at least one Starfox team member in each limo, so that they could tell the General that we had been under Starfox team supervision the whole time. The limousines then took us to our hotel, which was being paid for by the Cornerian Government. The ride was relatively quiet in the car I was in; I assumed everyone was thinking on what Pepper would want to tell us all. I let that thought slip from my mind and went back to pondering what had been on that scan. My thoughts of it wandered as I closed my eyes to think and without warning my thoughts went back to my childhood, where I remembered a conversation that my dad and I were having.

"_John, do you think I am honest with you?"_

"_Yes dad, I do. Why do you ask?"_

"_Because, for a son to love his father there needs to be honesty, not entirely on the son's part, but mostly on that of the fathers. Do you understand what I mean?"_

"_I think I do."_

"_I know you do, of course you understand, but John I regret to tell you that I cannot always be honest with you. Please don't be upset with me over this, but it is for your own safety."_

"_But why dad, what would I need to be safe from?"_

"_From that which could cause you to become prideful and full of self gloat. Do not ever become overly prideful son; it will cause your demise." I nodded, soaking in his wise advice._

"_I can tell you however that if you make the right choices and stay out of the wrong crowd, you can and will do great things for humanity as a whole. I can feel it." Again I nodded to show that I understood what he was trying to tell me. _

_Four months later_

_Two men and a woman came to our home and knocked on the door, asking to see my father. They spoke with him and then came inside; one of the men carried a case made of plastic that was about four feet long. He called me over to him as he stood in our living room. I walked over, sheepishly and said, "Sir." In a small tone of voice as I was only six years old. He looked down at me and said, "Please sit." I did as he asked and my dad along with the other man and lady stood at the entrance to our living room. He set the case down in front of me and stepped back, the woman now coming and sitting on her knees in front of me and the case. She opened it and lifted out a black rifle with no markings on it. She then said, "Do you know what this is?" I nodded and without even giving what I was saying a second thought, said, "That's an experimental type rifle, a BR-55. It fires a 9.6x45 mm armor piercing, high explosive round in semi automatic or three round burst, fully automatic versions are still in prototype phase." Her jaw dropped and she looked back to my father who was now being asked something by the man closest to him, his face bearing a stunned expression as well. After the man near him asked him his inaudible question, my father simply shook his head no and said, "No, he has never even seen a picture of that weapon."_

_I looked back and forth between all of the individuals in the room, lingering on my father's visage the longest. "Good job young man, now do you think that you can do another thing for me, because if you do it correctly, then you can keep this rifle." I nodded and she said, "Please take this rifle apart, field strip if you will."_

_I looked back up to my father, his face bearing a stunned expression as to what the lady had asked me to do. I then focused my attention on the rifle and picked it up, holding it precariously in my then small hands. After surveying it for a moment or two, I depressed the magazine release catch button and the empty mag slid out of the magazine port with the crisp sound of metal lightly grating against another metal surface. I then looked over the rifle again and found the takedown pin, depressed it until it slid out, and removed the upper assembly from the lower. After doing this, I reached into the rear of the upper assembly and began removing the springs and machinery that accompanied the bolt assembly, laying out the parts neatly on the floor as I removed them. Upon complete breakdown of the rifle, I heard a small beep and the woman removed a stopwatch from the pocket her hand had been resting in._

"_Thirty nine seconds, that's faster than what some military personnel can complete this task in. excellent job, you may keep the rifle and we will see you again, soon, very soon." They then left, I never saw them again, I was just left baffled at the whole situation. _

"Corneria to John, we're here." Said Falco, removing me from my short memory. I stepped out of the limo, staring up at the hotel which we had stayed at the previous night. We walked into the hotel, still receiving strange looks from those in the main lobby and proceeded to our respective rooms. Upon arriving at my room, I stepped in and crashed on the sofa, peering down at my watch and realizing that it was time for me to be hungry, it was an hour past lunchtime. About twenty minutes after I had this thought, there was a light knock at my door. I said, "Come on in, it's unlocked." After saying this, a white feline entered my room and said, "Uhh, the rest of us were wondering if you would like to accompany us to lunch?" I nodded and got up off the couch, stretching as I did so, not from being sore but from a sort of tiredness that had come over me during the short time on the sofa.

I stepped out into the hallway behind Alex and was greeted by the rest of the group who, as Alex and I exited the room, started to make their way down the hall towards the elevators. There was only one other from my team that was accompanying us, Bradford, whom I was starting think, was taking a liking to the Lylatian culture and races. The elevator pinged as we reached the bottom floor and we stepped out of it, heading out the main entrance and making our way down the street until Fox finally asked what we were in the mood for. I replied that I could go for anything at the moment along with everyone else. He nodded and said, "I know just the place. You two should like pretty well too." Motioning to Stephanie and I. we all nodded and followed his lead on the sidewalk, toward the downtown Capitol City area, engaging in small talk all the way.

About fifteen minutes later

"Well, this is it, I hope you all enjoy."

"This place looks like the cafés back on earth, don't it Bradford?" she nodded and replied, "Yeah, it kind of looks like one that I used to go to for business meetings…ya' know, before I joined up." I nodded and we all proceeded to go inside the restaurant to get our tables and order up some lunch. We were seated and a rather cute, young lioness walked up to our oversized booth informing us that her name was Samantha and that she would be our waitress today. We all nodded and she proceeded in taking drink orders of us. I simply ordered a glass of water, but Stephanie seemed to be a bit more adventurous and ordered a fruit cocktail drink of some sort. The rest of the Starfox team members ordered their desired beverages and we waited for them to be brought out. While waiting though, Fox decided that he wanted to ask some more questions of me.

"John, how would one go about becoming a Spartan?"

"Wow that was longer than I had expected for that question to come up," I said in a partially sarcastic manner, "but to answer your question, I will need to ask one of you. How old are you Fox?"

"Uhh, twenty nine, why?"

"I know what you are thinking and you can't become a Spartan, you're too old. I went into Spartan training later than everyone else by only a few years and was nearly left in the dust. If I had not been in the military previously before that, then I would have literally died in training. Every other Spartan went into Spartan training at six years old, but when I was six I was receiving training from my dad, who was a merc for the government. He trained me to be strong and run hard for long periods of time, how to build a shelter, how to clean a weapon, and how to use my head in tough situations. He always remarked, though, that I learned whatever he was teaching me, way too fast for my age at the time, that it should take me a week what I could learn in a matter of hours. He always seemed stunned by it. That was another thing that I never could understand about myself either, how I could learn so fast. In home videos that I would watch of myself when I got older, my parents would marvel at my vast vocabulary that I had when I was two, while other children my age could barely speak. But back to your original question, one has to go through vigorous, life threatening training from age six until about fourteen, at which time they would receive biological and technological augmentations that would make them better, faster, stronger, unbreakable, and near invincible. After which, they would recover and then go get fitted for a suit of armor known as MJOLNIR armor suits. These suits, I can't describe them actually, but they could nearly withstand anything that could be dished out. That's about it for the process in which someone becomes a Spartan. Does that help you understand?" Fox nodded and was about to say something when he and the rest of us heard a small voice say, "Sir, are you Fox McCloud?"

We all turned our heads in the direction of the voice and saw a small kit standing at the edge of our table with bright, wide eyes at the sight he beheld.

"Yes, I am." Fox said with a bit of a sigh, for he knew what was coming next, but to Fox's surprise, the kit ran back to another table and whispered something in someone's ear, who then got up and walked over to where we were sitting with the small kit at her side. The all white vixen then said, "Wow, I am like, your biggest fan ever. Could I have your autograph… please?" Fox consented and the vixen pulled out a slip of paper from her pocket and handed Fox a pen.

"Who is this to now?"

"Oh, uhh, make it out to Michelle Lancaster please." Fox did so and handed the slip of paper back to her, the whole while however, the small kit was not focusing on Fox and the other members of the Starfox team, but instead on me. I noticed and somewhat watched him out of my Peripheral as he stood next to where I sat. A moment later, I felt a small, furry paw tap on my arm. I looked down at the kit, trying not to look to imposing and asked what he wanted in as nice a tone as I could muster. He simply looked at me stunned that I had acknowledged him and asked, "What's your name sir?"

"My name's John, what's yours?"

"It's Matthew, but most people call me Matt." I nodded and he kept intently looking at something barely sticking out of my pocket. I looked down at what he was observing and saw that he was enthralled with my sunglasses. I pulled them out and said, "Would you like to see them?" he nodded enthusiastically and I handed the titanium framed glasses to him. He looked them over and seemed to enjoy the fact that he could see himself in the entirely mirrored lenses. After he had looked them over to his liking, he handed them back to me and said, "Thank you for letting me look at them." As he was about to walk away, I said, "Hey Matt, would you like to have them?" he looked at me somewhat dumbfounded that I would give him a pair of such nice sunglasses.

"Yes, yes I would." He said quite enthusiastically. I handed him the pair of shades and he replied, while bearing a large smile on his face, "Thanks." He then did something I did not expect, he gave me a friendly hug, which I, after overcoming the initial shock of it, sort of returned. He and his older sister then left just as our waitress was bringing back our drinks.

"So, you're pretty good with kids I see." Falco retorted, trying to get on my nerves most likely.

"Yeah, I guess, I mean we were all his age at one time or another." Everyone nodded and began to give their meal orders to the waitress. She took everyone else's up and came to me, even though I was not ready to order, as a matter of fact, I had not even looked at the menu. I frantically asked the others what they recommended, but to no avail, apparently there were too many recommended orders. Distraught, I finally turned to the waitress and said, "Just give me what the chef recommends." She nodded and left to turn in our orders, leaving us to engage in more small talk until she returned with our food.

About three hours later

"Yes general…we'll be there right away."

"What was that all about?"

"I don't know, but Pepper wants us at his office ASAP. He said he had somethin' really important for us."

"Okay then, let's roll. I really hope it's a mission though."

"C'mon John, he said he wanted you there as well." I nodded and we all left to head down towards the Cornerian military headquarters. After a short drive in our limo, we arrived at the headquarters, walked inside and were directed to a large conference room on the seventeenth floor by the receptionist.

"That's odd; he usually always meets us in his office. Maybe he does have a mission for us, a big one."

"Yeah, if he's meeting us in a conference room then it must be pretty big. Probably a multi team operation or somethin'." Fox nodded at Falco's suggestion and we all stepped out of the elevator, making our way towards the conference room. We arrived at the designated location and Fox knocked on the door. A gruff, but still recognizable voice said for us to enter. We did so and were met with an empty conference room except for General Pepper and a few of his officers.

"Welcome Starfox, I see you brought our visitor as I requested."

"Yep, we brought him, now what exactly did you need to see us about General?"

"Ah, yes, to that matter of business." He signaled to one of his lieutenants and the lights dimmed, as the lights were dimming, a holographic visual materialized above the surface of the table, bearing maps and tactical data of one of the distant planets on the edge of the Lylat system.

"What is all this General?"

"As you know, there has been a deteriorating situation on Venom for the past six years, correct."

"Yes general, we were aware of that. But why is it of concern, hasn't it just been a group of rebels trying to simply make a statement with small scale riots and protests?"

"Yes, in the past. But as of a threat one year ago, the situation has erupted into a civil war. We at first had it contained to Venom, but recent setbacks have allowed the rebel group to gain control of a separate planet."

"Which one general?"

"They have taken control of Sauria."

"But why Sauria general, what's there?"

"That is what we thought at first as well, but upon further investigation Sauria has proved to be a resource rich planet. We cannot allow the rebels to be able to amass an army based on Sauria, we need you and your team to go in and attack a their base of operations, here." He pointed to a spot on the hologram and a blown up visual of a rather large base came into view.

"We have Intel on this group, they call themselves Free Fighters and from what is currently unknown to us about where they get them, have a rather large arsenal of weaponry. Your goal is to disable this base by any means necessary, do not however render the surrounding eco system unlivable. Do you accept the mission?"

"Well general, I don't know if we are currently equipped to take on an operation of that magnitude. We currently only have two arwings and two landmasters and dare I say what our armory looks like, it is rather bare. Our ship is not a combat class space vehicle either. We are still waiting for the insurance papers to be finalized and who knows how long that could take. I'm afraid that we will not be able to accept." Peppers ears dropped at hearing this, but before he could reply, I interjected saying, "Permission to speak General?"

"Yes, permission granted although you don't have to ask for it."

"Sir, I believe that my team may be able to help the Starfox team on their mission."

"How so Captain?"

"Before my team and I left to come to this system, we received enough weapons and vehicles to start a war of our own, if I do say so myself, and we would be obliged to help Starfox take care of anything they would need help with."

"Well then, that sorts that out, what you say to that McCloud, bear in mind that both teams will be compensated graciously on a successful mission."

"Well, I guess if he would be willing to help, then I accept."

"Right then, I will need you to leave for Sauria as soon as possible, so whenever you are ready to leave Captain Carter, you are all dismissed." I nodded and we all began to leave the conference room. As I was about to step out the door, however, General Pepper called me back in for a moment.

"Yes general, you needed me for a second?"

"Yes, Fox has informed me of your business here and I along with a group of my advisors believe that there are several planets within this system that humans would be able to populate, but just how many humans do you think will be coming to populate a given planet?"

"Well I am going to estimate on the high side and say one billion."

"Excellent, we were guessing even higher numbers, but nevertheless, we have assembled a list of five available planets for possible human population. Do human require a specific environment though for living, or is the rest of your race adaptable?"

"No, humans can adapt to almost any environment." The general then handed me a folder stuffed with papers on the five planets that they would be willing to allow humans to live on, papers containing every fact and detail about each planet imaginable. I took the folder and with a grateful smile on my face said, "Thank you General, it's good to finally meet a race that is not shooting at us, all the time." He smiled and I then left the conference room and met up with the Starfox team in the hallway.

"So, what did he say to you?"

"He gave me a folder of details on five planets in Lylat that humans could possibly populate, thanks to Fox." Fox smiled a bit, we all left to go get the rest of my team, and head off to Sauria in order to take care of business. Fox contacted the main military base and told them to have our ship ready for launch within the hour, meaning, they needed to put everything back. While we were traveling back to the hotel and then to the military base, I couldn't help but think what in the world this rebel group would be so adamant about as to take over two planets.

"Fox, is it always this dramatic here?" I finally asked.

"Yeah, there is usually always a lot of drama somewhere in the system. When it's peaceful is when things are weird." He said with a bit of a chuckle.

Even with his nonchalant attitude about the whole drama thing, I couldn't help but think that there was more to this whole thing than a simple rebellion.


	11. Chap 11 The Start of an Arduous Journey

Chapter 11 The Start of an Arduous Journey

Three Hours Later

"Are the ground service crews clear?"

"Yeah, everyone is cleared of the ship's perimeter. You have the green light for liftoff."

"Excellent…All crew members, this is Captain Carter, prepare for ground launch of our resident cruiser in 3, 2, 1." The massive Halcyon class battle cruiser lifted off the ground of the military base and began climbing through the atmosphere towards the void of space spread throughout the Lylat system. Everything on board vibrated and rattled as the ship's sheer power forced it to plow through the atmosphere. After about ten minutes of dealing with all the atmospheric pressures wreaking auditory havoc on the external of the ship, we reached the vacuum of Lylatian space. I then set the ship to autopilot on the predetermined course towards the planet Sauria, as I was told it was called, and left the bridge, being trailed by Fox, heading towards the armory where the rest of mine and Fox's team was at. Upon arriving in the armory, I glanced around and noticed that the Starfox members were each talking to one of my individual teammates. Slippy was talking to Mendoza about vehicles, Falco to Rawlings, Krystal, Katt, and Alex were all talking to Bradford, Norris, Espinoza, Jennings, Moore, and Lawson. As I walked in, they all noticed me and their conversations hushed as they expected me to say something. I took one last look around at all of them and began to give my instructions for my plan of a successful mission.

"Starfox team members, while in this armory you need to pick out two weapons that you would like to use on the ground. Rawlings, you are with Falco, teach him about his selected weapons. Mendoza, you are going to teach Slippy about our vehicles along with his selected weapons. Three more need to help Krystal, Katt, and Alex, I'll let you all decide that," I said as I motioned towards the group, "Fox is with me, he and I will review the recon Intel and come up with a battle plan and I will educate him on his chosen weapons. Any questions?" I looked back around the room and received an affirmative no from each individual as my gaze landed on them. I nodded and then asked Fox if he would go ahead and choose his weapons, he nodded and we both walked over to the weapons stash area.

"Okay, so what is this one?"

"That is an SA2-AM sniper rifle; it fires these very accurately, up to three thousand meters." I said as I held up a 14.5x114 mm round, he marveled at its size, remarking that it looked as if it could kill anything. But he was not done looking through the available weapons we had. He set down the rifle and walked over to a case with bulky looking types of weapons accompanied with boxes of red, maroon colored ammunition, each marked with 8 Gauge, Happy Hippo's. He looked back at me and without him even asking, I began to explain this weapon to him.

"That is called an M-90 shotgun. Do describe it, it uhh, fires a lot of little bullets at once, that's about all that I can describe it as." He nodded and proceeded to the next weapons case, full of M-7 SMG's. He picked one up, turning it over in his hands as he examined it.

"This somewhat resembles our version of a machine gun, what does it do?"

"Well it is not exactly a machine gun; it's a class lower than a machine gun. That is an M-7 submachine gun. It fires 5x23 mm hollow point rounds at astonishing rates, although even with its high rate of fire, it lacks serious stopping power because of the small caliber of round, but if stopping power is what you want, then I recommend this." I said as I picked up an assault rifle and handed it to him.

"What is it?"

"That is an MA5B assault rifle. It fires these at the same rate as the SMG but with much more stopping power behind each bullet." He looked over it a bit more and set it down, picking up a Battle Rifle and looking over its sleek, matte black design.

"Ahh, that is a personal favorite of mine, it is known as the Battle Rifle although its technical name is the BR-55HB. It fires the biggest round of a handheld weapon we have except for the mag-rail and sniper rifle." He nodded and set it back down to go and see what else we had to suit his combat needs.

"Well Fox, what types of weapons do you like?"

"Hmm, I kind of like machine guns, but I'm good with a sniper rifle as well, but if I had to say a certain type of weapon, it would be machine guns." I nodded and said, "Well, how would you like a weapon that has the versatility of a machine gun with the accuracy of a sniper rifle?" his eyes widened and ears perked up as he heard this.

"You all have a weapon like that?"

"Yeah, the battle rifle, the one you picked up earlier was not equipped with its standard scope attachment, here." I then handed him a battle rifle with a scope attached to it and said, "The versatility lies in this rifle's capability to fire a three round burst and in one shot, semi automatic modes." He smiled as he looked through the scope and realized that the 2x magnification provided more than ample viewing of a distant target.

"Would you like to go to the range and test it out, see if you like it after you find another weapon to suit you?" he nodded and went to pick up an assault rifle, holding each, he said, "So, where is this range at exactly?" I chuckled and replied, "Jus' follow me."

We arrived down at the in ship range, completely clear, devoid of anyone else, for now. I knew that the others would most likely be down in a while to try out their new weapons. Fox walked over to a steel table and set the rifles down on its shining surface.

"Okay Fox, first off, you need to load these weapons up, here are the bullets and magazines." I said as I set multiple magazines and boxes of ammo down beside the rifles. He looked at me puzzled and said, "What do you mean 'load them up'?" I chuckled saying, "You really haven't used anything other than plasma weapons have you?" He looked at me puzzled again.

"Okay, I'll show you the fast way to load the magazines. First you take a bullet like this and put it in this thing until it slides to the bottom and then…"

"Hold on a second, what is that thing that you are sliding the bullets into?"

"Oh this, it's called a stripper clip, it just lets you load up a lot of bullets really fast, now back to what I was saying, keep sliding the bullets into it until it is full all the way to the top. Once that is done, you should have twenty bullets in the stripper clip. After loading it entirely, you pick up a magazine and put one bullet into it like so. After that is complete, you might want to come over to this side of the table cause I'm going to sit on the table for a second." He walked over to the side I was on and kept watching what I was doing to load the magazine with bullets, I then hopped up onto the table, sat facing Fox, and placed the magazine in between my inner thighs, gripping it with my legs as I did so.

"Okay, once you're sitting like this, you then take the stripper clip and place this end of it, you see with the arrow facing down, at the back of the magazine with the bullets facing forward and once it's in place, you press down on the top bullet until they all go into the magazine." He watched in amazement as all twenty bullets slid into the magazine without so much as a simple snag, but did not come flying back out after I released pressure from the top one.

"You think you can do it now?" he nodded and I handed him the magazine with the stripper clip as well. He took them both and after about five minutes of fiddling around with it and pinching his fingers a few times, he got all sixty rounds loaded into the mag. He however did not know that sixty was the cut off point and kept trying to load more bullets in. I however explained to him that the magazine was already at max capacity and that it wouldn't take any more bullets without an extension mag attached. He nodded, still looking puzzled at what I told him, but accepted it and said, "So can I try and shoot the rifle now?" I nodded and picked up the rifle off of the table and walked over to an empty range station. He followed suit with the now loaded mag in paw, ready to shoot the new weapon. I stepped to the side and motioned for him to step up to the line and held out the rifle for him to take. He took it and began to ask how the magazine was to be put into the rifle in order to fire it.

"You try to figure it out first, if you can't, then I'll help." He nodded and began looking over the rifle, finding the ejection port and trying to put the magazine in it. I chuckled and said, "No, no that's where the mag goes, look at the underside of the rifle and remember, the bullets face forwards, just like when you were loading them." He looked to the underside of the rifle and found the magazine port.

"Is this it?" he asked pointing a finger at the rectangular hole at the rear of the weapon. I nodded and he hesitantly slipped the magazine into the hole until he and I heard a sound click and the round counter below the iron sights flashed sixty twice and then remained a solid blue color.

"It counts bullets for you?" I nodded and he remarked, "Damn, the Cornerian government has got to get some of these things for our military."

"Alright now, pull that thing right there back until it will not go any further." I said pointing to the bolt handle. He did so and when it would not go any further, I said, "Alright, now let it go." He let it go and the first round was chambered, ready to be fired.

"Okay, I'll be behind you in case you are about to fall from the compounding recoil." He looked at me somewhat shocked to hear this and said, "What did you say?"

"The recoil, plasma weapons don't have it so firing a weapon with recoil can cause people to fall over if it is their first time, don't worry though, if you fire in short bursts, the recoil isn't bad at all." He nodded and took a bit of a wider stance and leveled the rifle at his shoulder, just like he'd shot one all his life. He squeezed off a short burst and the sudden shock of the recoil caused him to shudder a bit and lose his aim, the rifles muzzle moving unpredictably up, down, side to side. He stopped firing and said, "Would you mind showing me the proper way to shoot this thing, cause I think I just did it wrong." I nodded and took the rifle from him glancing at how many rounds were left, fifty three. I took up my standing firing position and squeezed off a six round burst, aiming at the most distant target. Five of the six rounds slammed into the steel target, causing it to fall backwards, simulating a downed enemy. He looked on in awe as I downed three more targets within another two seconds. I depleted the mag and set the rifle down, announcing to no one in particular, "Range all clear." Fox's expression was that of intense awe at what he had seen.

"How do you fire it so smoothly, I mean without moving?"

"Practice." He nodded and looked back down at the range at the downed targets.

"Would you like to see a bit of what I will expect you to be able to do by the time I finish training you with these weapons?"

"Yeah, I think I would."

"Okay then." I went back to the table and grabbed a full mag out of an ammo can put it in the Battle Rifle and slipped one other into my left cargo pocket, walked back to the line, reset the targets, cycled the bolt once, and raised my lane bar so that I could go out onto the range.

"You can follow, but just stay behind me on the range please." He nodded and I stepped onto the line, switching the rifle from semi to burst mode and starting to jog towards the first cover, a steel crate. As I ducked behind it and peeked over, I saw a target start to rise up from behind another distant crate, but before it could even rise all the way up, three 9.6 mm rounds pounded into where its head was. I got up and while sidestepping, leveled other targets that were attempting to rise up from behind cover and from their seemingly invisible hide spot on the floor. My first mag emptied and I dropped it out while bringing up the second to place in the formers respective place, the originally locked back bolt cycling forward and chambering another round. I repeated the fire sequence until most of the targets were downed and my rifle mag was emptied again. Slinging the rifle to my back, I drew my side arm and began firing rounds off at the remaining four targets. Just as I was drilled to do in training, I aimed so that two rounds hit in the chest and one in the head, each of the four targets going down in the blink of an eye.

"So, what did you think?"

"What, I can't hear you my ears are ringing like crazy." He said in almost a yelling tone. I chuckled again remembering that this was his first time around gunpowder based weaponry. I shook my head and he said, "WHAT." At which time Falco, Marcus, Katt, and Krystal all walked in.

"Yo Foxy, what's all the yellin' for?"

"What, I can't hear you, my ears are ringing." He yelled out again. Mendoza then went over to the range's white board and wrote in big writing, **WE CAN HEAR YOU, STOP YELLING. **Fox seemed to look a bit embarrassed now and Krystal went over to give him a hug, while the rest of us had a good laugh about it.

"So Mendoza, you come down here to show Falco how to shoot?"

"Yep, but them two followed because of the yelling."

"Oh, yeah, they have apparently only shot plasma weapons, so uhh; take it slow with 'em."

"Got it Cap', you don't gotta tell me twice. Say when we going to get to kick some more ass, I want to get on the ground and blow up something."

"It's about a three day trip on this course. We'll be there soon enough, but just remember that all of the Starfox team needs to know the in and outs of our weapons."

"Alright, I'll start him up then, right away, the rest of the group wanted me to tell you that they are working with their Respective members as ordered." I nodded and he went to teaching Falco the way to use a sniper rifle and a rocket launcher. The rest of us sat down on the table to watch Falco try and use our massive sniper rifles. He stepped up to the line with a loaded mag and looked through the scope a target on the extreme far end of the range. We saw him steady his breath and I could barely see him squeeze the trigger. Half a second later, a massive boom was echoing through the range as the sniper round exploded from the barrel and cut through the air, leaving a white smoky vapor trail in its wake, it then slammed into the target being aimed at and pierced through the thin metal outline. Falco lowered the rifle, switched on the safety, turned around to face us rubbing his shoulder a bit, and said, "No offense Katt, but I think I'm in love." We all had a round of laughs at his comment and went on with weapons training. I knew that we weren't going to have to teach the Starfox team about combat tactics, but instead just how to use this new to them weaponry. I was certain it was to be a long three days.


	12. Chapter 12 A Change of Plan

Chapter 12 A Change of Plan

Roughly Seventy Two hrs later: Lylat System, in orbit around Planet Sauria

I mentally looked back over the past three days. All the Starfox team members had learned our weaponry real fast and were now expert shots with the ones they had individually chosen. Fox could now hit a target while firing full auto, without so much as a waver in his entire stance and even learned some hand to hand, knife fighting technique. I was proud of how well they had learned our weapons and their ability to use them effectively; I was actually looking forward to fighting along side them on the ground, whereas in this case, other Spartans would be apprehensive of it, being concerned that more people would be extra baggage. I left my thoughts on the bridge as I exited the large bridge door and headed for the briefing room. Once there, I got on the ship wide intercom and called all crewmembers into the pre mission brief/ready room. They all arrived and I began the briefing.

"Fox, please come up to the front of the room please." He did so and asked, "What do you need me up here for?"

"Because…because we are all in this together, we have to fight side by side and you were the one that helped me with the battle plan. Perhaps that could factor in to you assisting a little with the briefing process?" he nodded and we both turned to the rest of the individuals in the room, all standing and ready to go. As we turned to face them, a holographic projection formed and hovered above the large round table's surface, everyone's eyes concentrating on it.

"Alright ladies and gentlemen, this is our battle plan. Since there are fifteen of us, Fox and I have divided up the entire group into three five man teams. Alpha team, which will consist of Mendoza, Norris, Rawlings, Fox and I, and will be the frontal assault on the base. Bravo team will flank the left side, secure the barracks and armory. Bravo team consists of Moore, Lawson, Slippy, Katt, and Krystal."

As I finished explaining the first part of our plan, Fox added on the second requirement, "Yes and that leaves us with support team Charlie. As you can see, here in this layout of the base, the base sits within the confines of two large hilltops. Charlie team will need to secure the western most hilltop for sniper support, it is the nearest to the base, at about one thousand meters. The rest of you, Falco, Alex, Espinoza, Jennings, and Bradford will be the support team, any questions?"

"Yeah, when do we get down there and start blastin'?"

"That's a good question…we will depart in about fifteen minutes and insert here, behind this ridge. We figured it would be the safest insertion point as it is seven klicks from the base…"

"Hold on a second, we're walking for seven kilometers…fully geared?"

"No, I was about to get to that part before I was rudely interrupted. As a matter of fact, we will be taking vehicles with us. We will be taking three of our dropships in, one with a tank in tow and two with M-12 warthogs. We will also put three mongooses in the hold of one of the dropships, now are there any more questions?"

"Where is the rally point if the mission goes south real fast?"

"Right here, it is designated at grid square zulu-delta eight seven." Everyone gave an understanding nod and looked around at each other and their respective fire teams.

"Good then, dismissed. Be in the hangar in ten, we will depart from there in fifteen from now." Everyone nodded again and went to gear up, Fox began to walk out of the room, but I called him back in.

"Yeah John, what'd ya want?"

"I just wanted to tell you that…when we are down there…you may become confused by my tactics, you don't need to worry though, I have tested all of the tactics that I may have to use in real life combat and they work. Just please, don't second guess my judgment down there. If there is one thing that I learned in training that I can tell you to help you understand, it is this. When fighting to win, failure is not an option, surrender is not an option, retreat is a last resort, and capture is just another way in. Do you understand?"

"Yeah, I think I do."

"Good, because if I go down, then you are in charge. In the event that I am injured too extensively to continue, don't hesitate, begin giving orders immediately. Get them all out alive." He nodded and we began walking out of the briefing room towards the hangar. We arrived at the hangar and everyone else was already there, ten minutes early gathering ammo for their weapons and loading crates of grenades and ammo onto the pelicans. My team was securing the vehicles to the rear of the pelicans and running last minute diagnostics on all systems. I walked over to a crate and opened it, revealing a bunch of armor vests. I pulled them out and handed one to each Starfox team member, telling them to put them on because they stop plasma weaponry better than regular armor. They all nodded and put the vests on, having to get a little help adjusting them as they were one size fits all type. They then thanked me for the vests and with two minutes before we were to depart, I called my miniature coalition force together into a group/huddle to tell them one last thing before were to land on the ground.

"Alright everyone, we are all a team here, so no matter what happens, you need to cover each others asses like you've known that individual your whole life, Got it?" everyone nodded in understanding of my statement.

"Good, now we're going to do a little pre mission pep up I learned while with my fellow soldiers, repeat after me. I push myself…"

"I push myself."

"Through physical hell…"

"Through physical hell."

"Each and every day…"

"Each and every day."

"Everywhere is my battle ground…"

"Everywhere is my battle ground."

"And you are my prey."

"And you are my prey."

"Fight on three… 1, 2, 3 …FIGHT!" The sound of fifteen voices, ready to fight, adrenaline boosted voices, voices that were ready to fight and die for each other, reverberated throughout the entire hangar area. With the close of our pre mission battle cry, we loaded up into the dropships and headed off towards the surface of the planet, first cutting through the short void of space between the planet and our cruiser, then plowing through the atmosphere of the age old planet where dinosaurs still roamed, but could speak to people who knew the Saurian language. As our trio of dropships neared the surface of the planet, we began to pick up radar and radio signals, their source lying at the base, but no attempted contact over any comm. channels. We arrived at the LZ and landed after dropping the vehicles, shutting down the three D-77H-TCI's engines as fast as possible to avoid infrared detection from the heat given off. Alpha and bravo teams then began to mobilize towards the base as Charlie sped off in a troop carry warthog to secure the western hilltop. After a while, we came within visual range of the base and stopped to scan it with our rifle scopes and binoculars, no guards any where to be seen. This I did not like too much at all, we could not see our enemy, as a matter of fact, there was no sign of the enemy other than the base itself.

"What do you think about this Fox?"

"I don't like it at all, let's just stick to the plan though. We need to take this base and destroy it, lets move." With that, the small warthog sporting a .50 cal chain gun and carrying bravo team moved off to the left of the base's main entrance in order to assault the barracks and armory. I along with Fox and the rest of my team on top of the M808B battle tank I was driving proceeded towards the main gate. As we were slowly moving along, I received a radio transmission from Charlie team.

"'Kay cap', we're in position on hill west of base and from here, the base looks deserted…Yeah there's no one down there, at all. No bodies even, its like a ghost town thing."

"Roger that, keep to the plan, maintain radio silence, Carter out." After the transmission ended, we, being alpha team, moved on towards the main gate. Once we were within four hundred meters of it, I stopped the tank and Rawlings hopped off accompanied by Mendoza, to go plant charges on the main gate. They got there without a hitch and placed a twenty pound C12 shaped charge to breach the concrete and steel reinforced barrier in order for the tank to fit through. They headed back and everyone got behind the tank. On the tank's computer readout screen I got a countdown notice and once it reached zero, the entire area shook as the twenty pounds of explosive pierced through the barricade, blasting a hole with more than ample room for the tank to fit through. I drove on, the rest of alpha walked, half crouching with assault and battle rifles ready, behind the tank for cover. Once through the gate, I turned the main turret from side to side and my team members swept back and forth with their rifles, scanning for targets, no shots, no movement, only the quiet of the base's concrete buildings. This unnerved me to no end, the enemy could be planning an ambush; I had planned for an ambush but was not expecting one, as we had the element of surprise. We proceeded to the main building and I got out of the tank and, while half crouched, jogged up to the main doors to the base's control center and waited for my team to line up against the wall on either side of the main door to raid the room. I kicked the door in and we all rushed into the room, only to be met by silence, no troops, nothing. As I contemplated the situation, my radio crackled to life and the bravo team leader was on the channel.

"Hey Cap', you got any soldiers where you are, cause aint no one over here in the barracks. They all empty."

"Affirmative, we've met no resistance over here, ya'll investigate a bit wont you, tell me what you find and we're doing the same here."

"Roger that, bravo team out."

I turned back to my team and motioned for them to sweep the building. They left to search their respective areas and I turned to search about in the main office/ communications area. Once I arrived in there, I noticed something odd, the comm. radio was on and crackling a bit with static and the slight sound, every once in a while, of static, garbled voices.

"Hey Fox, come down here for a bit will ya', I found a radio and don't know how to use it." A few moments later, an orange vulpine walked around the corner, assault rifle at the ready and joined me at the comm. station.

"I think that someone is trying to contact here. Can you adjust the frequencies so we can get the signal?" He nodded and started fiddling with the settings on the comm. set. After a few moments, he finally got a signal and a static filled transmission filled the speakers of the set.

"This is Corneria main…base. Capito…ty under att…need assistance. Enemy force…strong. Request all…ble troops…I repeat …fighters have attac…city, need backu………" the transmission ended in static as we heard the pulses of a blaster weapon. Fox and I then looked at each other and then without a word, ran out of the building towards the tank, me climbing in and starting it up while Fox got on the fire team wide comm. channel, ordering them to report back to the LZ for immediate departure, Corneria was under attack.

We arrived back at the LZ as the two other teams arrived and began loading the pelicans as fast as we could manage.

"Fox is there any way to get back to Corneria faster than the way we came, our slipspace drive engine is down, we only have the main reactor, propulsion engines."

"Yeah, if the Cornerian orbital gate is intact, they can open up a slipspace portal for us. It'll take us directly back to Corneria."

"Good, Moore, you and Slippy are together, you two get us a comm. link to that orbital gate, ASAP!" they both nodded and went into the cockpit of the pelican to begin working on communications with the orbital gate. The rest of us were frantically securing and giving final checks to the vehicles attached to the rear of the pelicans. We got everything set up and went into our respective dropships, starting them up and taking off without even letting the engines warm up, climbing straight up through the atmosphere towards our battle cruiser.

"Moore, what is the status of that comm. channel!?"

"Working on it Cap'. We got to get the math on it right and with the extended range comm. system on board the Atlas; we should be able to get a transmission through to the orbital gate."

"Good, keep working on it." I gripped the controls of the small dropship tighter as we left the atmosphere in a tight formation, the Atlas now in our visual. I throttled up all the way in the vacuum of space and rocketed towards our battle cruiser at full speed, shutting down the engines at one hundred kilometers from the massive ship and executing a one hundred eighty degree turn and throwing the forward thrust engines to half thrust, slowing our speed and allowing the dropship to be more maneuverable at the slower speed. We neared the massive airlock and turned to somewhat slide the pelican through the microgravity atmosphere into the hangar area, engaging the vertical thrust system as the ships artificial gravity took hold of our drop ship, landed and began to disembark. The other two pelicans landed Slippy and Moore jumped out of the back of the second pelican, running for the bridge as fast as their legs could carry them to get that transmission through. The rest of us followed suit after shutting down the pelicans and closing the external hangar airlock door. We all arrived on the bridge just as they were putting the transmission through to the orbital gate. We all stood silent and in adrenaline fueled suspense as the transmission was being initiated. As we stood there waiting for a reply, the audio channel crackled to life, but not only that, the face of a German shepherd wearing a naval officer's uniform was on the video feed view screen.

"What is the business of this transmission, how did you get this signal?"

"Sir, this is the Starfox/ Helljumper squadron coalition team. We received the emergency transmission from the Cornerian Capitol city and are requesting an immediate slipspace portal to Corneria. We're ready to fight."

"Right then, as soon as we trace your comm. signal back, you'll have a portal. We're under heavy attack here, the orbital gate was not heavily attacked, the Free Fighters just went straight for the surface. From what we understand so far, all civilians have been evacuated to the underground cave systems and the fight remains on the ground with slight aerial combat over the main military base…Okay we have your location now, sending portal in two minutes, good luck." With that the transmission ended and we stood there on the bridge, waiting.

"So Fox, what does this portal look like, I mean will we know when it's here?" I inquired.

"Yeah, it's a big green lookin', portal thing. Trust me; you'll know when they send it." I nodded and returned my gaze back out to the vast blackness, which was speckled with miniscule dots of white all over, distant stars, unreachable, somewhat how we all felt Corneria was at the moment, a distant star, threatened to be veiled by darkness that none of us could manage to stop. We would all feel useless if that portal did not show up soon, there would be nothing left of Corneria to defend if it failed. The portal had to make it and make it soon. All of the sudden, I was ripped from my thoughts as a shimmering green liquid looking portal appeared about forty kilometers in front of us. It looked huge, definitely big enough to accommodate the size of the Atlas. I took my command seat and throttled the propulsion system to full power, charging at the shimmering green portal at full speed. As I was doing so, Moore informed me that we would experience a reactor failure in fourteen seconds as I was running the engines at three hundred forty five percent power output (Authors note: Research the Halcyon Class UNSC ship the _Pillar of Autumn _before you say that that is not an achievable figure).

"We'll make it." A countdown to reactor failure appeared on my command computer screen, flashing red and counting down the estimated billionths of seconds till entire reactor system failure. As the counter reached four and a half seconds, we hit the lake of green and I shut the engines down as we were pulled through slipspace at the speed of light. Slippy and Moore looked over the readouts and estimated that we would arrive at Corneria in about ten seconds. I nodded and kept my eyes fixed on the main view port, watching the estimated countdown on my computer screen with my peripheral vision. Chris and Slippy estimated correctly, just as the timer hit zero, we exited slipspace, only to be bombarded by transmissions as we did so. The first transmission came through, it was from the orbital gate; they were now under major attack from all kinds of small craft and had already taken a hit from an enemy battleship. We acknowledged the transmission and I engaged the Atlas' battle class AI, capable of point defense with fifty mm cannons, firing of missiles, finding firing solutions for the MAC, firing the MAC, and maneuvering the ship, simultaneously.

"Gene', give me a firing solution for the MAC on the battleship bearing towards two niner niner."

"Yes captain, firing solution complete, MAC charge full, round loaded, ready to fire on your mark."

"Mark!" as my command attempted to echo off of the bridge walls, it was drowned out by a massive thump from the six hundred ton, ferric tungsten round exiting the barrel of the cannon at a tenth of the speed of light. It tore through the void between us and the enemy battleship in less than a fraction of a second, striking the enemy vessel and tearing through it, sending vented atmosphere, metal shards, equipment, and enemy personnel flying out into space as it ripped through the entire diagonal length of the ship, continuing out the other side and through the dark void, destroying several small craft as it passed by them.

"Gene', ready another round."

"Already on it sir. Round ready, fire at will."

"Give me a new firing solution, target the frigate at bearing one seven three."

"Firing solution complete, multiple inbound single ships, request permission to engage."

"Negative on that, fire only on targets designated by Starfox team." Fox then stepped over to the view screen and pointed out the style of friendly ships, since the Cornerian military had all the same types of ships. Gene acknowledged this and began to open fire on the approaching enemy ships, reducing them all to hulks of useless, floating metal in a matter of seconds as thousands of fifty millimeter rounds tore through ships just as a hot knife through butter.

"Yes captain."

I then fired the next MAC round, with much the same result as the first, enemy ship being disabled and all, but this round impacted the rear of the ship, in the engines and caused a meltdown, resulting in a spectacular fireworks show against the black canvas of space. I then turned to my crew members and told them, "get ready to take this fight groundside, we're goin' in and taking out some rebel ass." I got a unified "Hoo-Rah" from everyone on the bridge and they began to get their weapons and everything needed for a ground mission.

"McCloud, Jennings, Rawlings, Norris, Falco, and Katt, You are coming with me. We're going in with style." We then left the bridge, running towards the HEV pod room, we were going to have to land and create a safe LZ for the pelicans.

"The rest of the team will land after we make an LZ. We have a limited number of HEV's, so we're going to have to double up on a few. Rawlings, yours will carry our ground gear, Katt and Norris are in one, Falco and Jennings, and Fox and I. Fox, this is why we are called the Helljumper squadron, alright everyone, two minutes, load out." Each person went to fetch their weapons and gear, returning back with thirty seconds to spare.

"Load up, get in the pods, Gene, bring us over a suitable HEV drop locale in thirty seconds. Target an open area in the Downtown area of the Cornerian Capitol city."

"Yes captain, suitable location found, twenty seconds till drop, sealing pods in fifteen." We all climbed in the cramped atmospheric entry pods and got ready, Fox, Falco, and Katt not knowing what we were doing in these things at all.

"Alright Fox, I just want to let you know, it's gonna' get pretty hot in this thing, so don't freak on me, think of it as a jump into hell, feet first." He looked over his shoulder back at me and gave a bit of a weak smile. I could tell he didn't like the term, 'jump into hell, feet first.' Gene's voice came over the intercom and counted down the final five seconds, we could hear the HEV's sealing up so that its occupants would not die in the freefall through space and atmosphere. Once she said, "…Zero." we felt the effects of freefall as Corneria's gravity field pulled us in. there was no turning back now, we were stuck in this war, whether we liked it or not. All I could hope for was that the enemy was not like the covenant.


	13. Chapter 13 The War Begins: Part I

Authors Note: Okay, I dont know if you all were having any trouble with the AI's name in the story. To clear things up, it looks like JEAN and is spelled Gene, but it is pronounced JENAY, I just didn't know how to do the little E thingy at the end.

Chapter 13 The War Begins: Part I

I could feel the jerk, along with the immense heat, as the HEV fell through the atmosphere and the metallic parachute deployed to slow the pod's decent. Once the pod neared the ground, retro rockets deployed and slowed the decent to the speed of a mere two meter fall to the ground. Once it hit, the doors automatically deployed explosive charges opened the pod, sending the door a good five meters off of the rest of the metallic body and crashing over the surface of the ground, leaving unearthed plant life in its wake. I jumped out of the pod, executing a forward roll and landing on my right knee as I recovered from the roll, scanning the area from left to right with my battle rifle, Fox came out of the pod right behind me, a little dazed from the whole falling through the atmosphere and all, but ready to fight. As I scanned the area, I noticed that we were in the same park I had seen from the hotel and that all the other HEV's had landed safely, their occupants out and ready to go, at least, from what I could tell. My combat training took over and I shouted out, in a rather authoritative voice, "Report."

After I ordered the command, six separate voices returned their respective reports, loud and clear.

"I'm fine, let's get to kickin' some ass here." Rawlings reported.

"Yeah and I'm fine too." Norris added in.

"Katt here, still got all nine lives."

"I'm ready to go man, just give me the signal." Jennings explained.

"I got gun, I got ammo; I guess I'm all good." Falco quipped.

"Fox here, I survived."

"Good, everyone set up a perimeter. We need to get those pelicans down ASAP, we need vehicles and equipment." Everyone then went to locations in which they could take up defense of the area. I got on the radio and hailed the Atlas, trying to find out if the dropships were inbound and also how the space battle was going.

"Lieutenant Bradford, how is it up there right now, the LZ is secure and ready for dropship entry."

"Not too good cap', every enemy vessel that gets destroyed is replaced by another from slipspace. The Atlas has taken damage as well, lower decks seven through twelve are damaged, eight has been breached, but we're holding out. We've been drawing the fire of the enemy; the orbital gate has taken no known damage. We had to allow several Cornerian fighters to land onboard the ship though; they have sustained heavy casualties so far. I don't know how much longer Gene can hold out with the ship damaged, she's doing her best though, expect pelican touchdown in fifteen minutes."

"Roger that; did you say that more enemy vessels appear from slipspace after one is destroyed?"

"Yes, every ship we destroy is replaced by a fresh one from somewhere in slipspace."

"Hmm, okay, bring in the three pelicans; make sure we have a tank and two gunning warthogs."

"Yes sir, Bradford out." As the transmission ended, I looked around at my small ground force, seven of us in all, here to fight, to defend, and for a few of us, to find a new home. As we were sitting there, waiting for the dropships to arrive, I got a feeling that we were being watched, that someone knew that we were here. As I sat there, watching the surrounding areas, with that uneasy feeling in my gut, something caught my attention out of my periph. I looked left and raised my rifle, training it in on the area, but saw nothing and just knelt there, waiting for anything that might move. All of the sudden, out of seemingly no where, a rocket came flying into our midst, hit the ground and the resulting air blast from it blew us off of our feet. I turned to see a raccoon running away from the scene, an empty rocket launcher tube on his back. I jumped up off of the ground and leveled my rifle, sending a three round burst into the back of the enemy soldier and his head, dropping him instantly, blood quickly pooling under his body on the sidewalk. As I turned to see if he had any accomplices, another raccoon came sprinting at me, rifle raised to melee me in the head. As he neared my location I sidestepped and not having enough time to fire, swung my rifle as a baseball bat, catching him in the gut and causing him to reel over, lying face down on the ground, my boot delivering the killing blow to the back of the neck, accompanied by a sickening crunch as the bones in his neck were pulverized. I was no the only person in my group fighting off the swarming enemies. Fox was engaged in hand to hand as were most of the rest of my group, however, Katt was no where to be seen. I started to run towards the enemy Fox was engaging, clicking off rounds as I went, each striking the rather large boar, bringing him down in a bloody heap. Fox then turned and nodded at me, signaling me of the enemy trying to get a bead on me from behind. I acknowledged his warning and dove, rolling as a hail of plasma bolts flew past both Fox and I, us both taking cover behind one of the HEV's as plasma pounded into the front of it. He had dropped his assault rifle in the blast wave from the RPG and was now using his M6-C sidearm. I located his rifle and said, "Cover me", running out into the open, narrowly dodging the bolts of plasma as they flew mere millimeters past my body. I dove again, grabbing Fox's rifle as I made contact with the ground and recovered to my feet, holding both rifles like they were pistols and sending a hail of bullets towards the nearby threat as I ran back to behind the pod where Fox was at, tossing him back his rifle once I arrived.

"Bradford, this is ground fireteam one, LZ is hot, recommend air support for safe landing, do you copy?"

"Affirmative, we have our air support, we're coming in hot."

As the transmission ended, I turned back to see Fox kneeling down, providing 'search fire' as Falco and Jennings took out enemies with their sniper rifles. As I looked around at the rest of the fireteam, I saw Norris and Rawlings engaged in a small firefight from the opposite direction, but still no Katt. I scanned the area once more and found an SMG lying on the ground; we had brought no extra weapons other than our sidearms. It then hit me, either Katt had been captured or the worst had happened, I got up running for the weapon. Nearing it, I noticed thin trail of red liquid leading away from it into the thick, nearby bushes. I picked up the weapon and ran full speed towards the plants, stopping and baseball sliding into them as another barrage of plasma rounds passed over me. Within the bush was a terrified pink feline, part way sitting up, pistol in one paw and a bleeding leg in the other. She looked extremely relieved to see me, even though she almost put a round through the face plate of my helmet. Without a word I handed her SMG back to her and got onto my comm. unit, contacting Norris.

"Norris, we got an injury over here, the thick bushes, Katt got hit by some shrapnel in the leg. That rocket was a bitch."

Before we knew it, Norris was in the bushes, pulling her med pack off of her back and opening it up before it even hit the ground. I then left the bushes and returned to the fight. Rawlings was now engaged in hand to hand with a large gorilla and seemed to be losing. I ran over at full speed, hitting about forty KPH by the time I contacted the ape, sending all two hundred fifty pounds of bone, muscle, and gear into him, throwing him four meters before he struck the ground again, flipping head over heals as he impacted. Before he even had a chance to open his eyes or scream out in pain from his broken arm, my knuckles had buried themselves into his neck, crushing the tracheal passage and breaking his upper vertebrae at the same time. I turned around to see Fox lob a grenade at the concealed enemies providing suppressive fire. The small explosive landed within their ranks and exploded, sending blood, gear, and pieces of what were once soldiers, flying into the air. As we were engaged in the ground combat, I thought I heard the unmistakable sound of a pelican's engines, but dismissed it as ringing from the constant gunfire. No sooner though had I heard that sound that a pelican came over the treetops, guns blazin', the forty millimeter rounds ripping through foliage, plants, tree trunks, and enemy troops as if it were nothing. The dropship then executed a 180 degree turn and the cargo bay mounted fifty cal. jumped to life as Slippy held the trigger down, targeting and finishing off the remaining troops that had not fled. The pelican had dropped the tank already and was heading off to land at the military base. I ran and jumped into the tank, powering it up and bringing the thirty caliber coaxial gun to life as I slowly spun the turret around, cutting down the fleeing enemy and providing much needed covering fire for the rest of my squad. As the enemy began fleeing, I drove the tank forward a bit so that it was sideways between two HEV's, creating somewhat of a crude shield for the rest of us, got out and ran back over to the thick brush where Katt and Norris were located. Once finding them both still there and okay, I hefted the now battle scarred feline onto my shoulder and carried her back out to the tank where she could receive a bit better first aid, Norris being able to see better in the sunlight than under the bushes. After setting Katt at the back of the scorpion tank, I signaled for the rest of the group to come over to us, they did so and I began explaining my plan just as the second pelican dropship flew over, dropped the warthog and the two soldiers in the rear, they ran over to the warthog and drove it over to us, parking in a way that we would have more cover from the rear. As soon as they did that, the third pelican flew over and dropped the last warthog and troops, heading off to join the previous two at the Cornerian base. I looked at my team and mentally did a role call.

"_Okay, Fox, Katt, Falco, Alex, Norris, Krystal, Jennings, Espinoza, Rawlings, and Mendoza, good, the other four are in the pelicans."_

"Good…Falco, you Jennings and Espinoza are a team okay. You are our scout/sniper group, here's a radio and you'll go up ahead and warn us of looming shit holes, got it?" they all nodded in understanding and headed off in the direction of the base in order to get a good distance ahead of us so we could be warned of anything.

"Rawlings, you take Mendoza and Alex in that 'hog, you're on cover detail, so don't let anything get too close to the rear of the tank, and Norris, you are in charge of Katt and Krystal, you three are in the tank. Fox and I will take the last warthog and do sweeps on our rear. Remember keep your weapons trained, eyes open and ears alert, do not, however, shoot our sniper team, load up, moving out sixty seconds." Fox and I ran to our respective warthog and got in, me driving and him in the gunner position while the others from our combat team got into their respective vehicles. Soon after, we all began to roll out at a slow pace in order not to leave behind the tank. As the tank moved on ahead of Fox and me, I looked back at the recent combat area, wondering why the enemy had tried so hard to eliminate us from a park, of all places.

"You okay John?" Fox asked.

"Yeah, I just was thinki…" I was cut off as my radio crackled to life and Lawson's frantic voice blared over the transmission amidst static bursts.

"Mayd…yday…if anyon…there…this is pelic…ansport seven sev…enemy triple-A…shot down…front of downtown theater…I say again…ican seven seven…ot down." The transmission ended and I took off towards the main downtown area, Fox giving me directions to the described location in the transmission. Along the way, we passed by dead civilians, Cornerian troops and enemy personnel alike, myself cringing a bit as I saw dead women and children, every sight like that fueled anger and bitterness for my enemies. As we neared the main downtown area, we could both hear the slight report of plasma weapons and the occasional reports of explosive ordinance as it exploded. I slowed our speed a bit so that Fox would be able to get a solid bead on enemy targets as they appeared. We rounded the side of the theater building and saw a downed pelican, plasma scoring all along the starboard side and bottom of the craft, some of the titanium armor melted away and the starboard wing pylon partially buried in the concrete roadway from the force of the crash. I pulled up to the rear of the pelican and Fox remained in the warthog to cover me and Lawson as I pulled him out of the wrecked ship. I made my way towards the front of the pelican and got into the cockpit, gazing upon a bloody and battered from the crash, Corporal Richard Lawson.

"Lawson, can you hear me?" he slightly opened his eyes and looked up at me through the blood running down his forehead and gave me a thumbs up. I grabbed him by his armors shoulder 'grab straps' and dragged him out of the cockpit towards the open cargo door of the pelican and to the warthog. Once I got him out of the wrecked dropship, I hefted him up into the side passenger seat, leaning him towards the drivers' seat so he would not fall out while the M-12 was in motion. After loading him up, I began to run back around to the driver side of the warthog just as a mortar hit, not even twenty meters from our position, rocking me off my feet, throwing Fox down from the gunner seat and causing Lawson to scream in pain as the blast wave wreaked havoc on his already damaged body. I jumped back up and scanned the area, seeing an enemy mortar team in the distance, a bit of the smoke from the last mortar launch dissipating above the tube. Fox jumped up as well, only to drop back down as a plasma bolt struck his armor vest, searing the outer layer of it, but doing no damage to him. I looked to my left just as an enemy APC slowly rolled out from behind a building one block up from us.

Fox climbed back up into the gunner position and started firing the massive fifty cal. chain gun at the newly emerged enemy, the solid steel rounds doing little to the armored vehicle except dent its sides, sending sparks and shards of metal into the air as the bullets deformed and ricocheted off the vehicle's angled surface. I grabbed Lawson and pulled him out of the warthog, dragging him into the armored cargo bay of the pelican and grabbing the rear mounted chain gun by the firing handles, swinging it around and opening fire on the enemy APC, my armor piercing rounds doing far more damage than the rounds from the warthog. The enemy vehicle's driver must have realized this and trained the APC's twin plasma automatic guns on our position and opened fire, sending super heated bolts all around us. Fox and I both ducked down as the plasma barrage passed over us, instantly heating the air to an almost un-breathable level. As I laid there in the cargo bay of the dropship, I got an idea; I had seen the Master Chief do it a few times in the second battle for earth as I fought along side him. With this in mind, I pulled my battle rifle off my back and fired two, three round bursts into the base of the chain gun, where the weapon assembly meets the tripod support, weakening it. I then jumped up and grasped the firing handles, yanking the forty five pound weapon to the left and turning it back to the right, thus liberating it from the tripod. I then slung the belt of ammo over my left shoulder and running full speed out the back of the downed pelican, taking cover behind a nearby building across the street. I then dropped onto my left knee in the middle of the sidewalk and opened fire, sending the fifty caliber armor piercing rounds down range and into the open door of the APC where enemy troops were deploying from, ripping them to shreds and rendering that ground force inoperative. As I was firing, my comm. unit within my helmet crackled to life, Rawlings on the other end.

"Cap', there are enemy personnel everywhere, caught up in a firefight one and a half klicks east of your position, requesting support. Sniper team can't hold off the enemy effectively."

"Negative Rawlings, we're busy over here, Lawson got shot down, and enemy personnel are over here as well, Tank status?"

"It's still good, took some hits but still runnin' strong, no casualties on this end, Rawlings out." The transmission ended and I went back to providing suppressive fire on the APC as Fox took out the individual troops, then another mortar hit, even closer, knocking Fox out of his gunning position again and shattering nearby windows, causing a rain of broken shards to pelt me. I fell back to the warthog and saw Fox, lying on the ground beside the warthog, seemingly unconscious, but when I tapped him rather forcefully, he proved to be fully awake and aware of the situation despite the shallow gash above his right eye. He got up and pulled out his assault rifle, unloading a full magazine in about four seconds, causing enemy personnel to fall as the rounds pounded into them and their surroundings. I glanced over my left shoulder and saw that Lawson, despite the severe extent of his injuries, was firing an SMG at the enemy from a prone position on the floor of the pelican. As I turned back around to see and engage the enemy, a bolt of plasma washed over the right side of my helmet, beginning to melt it and attempt to break through to my face. I grasped my helmet in both hands and ripped it off, throwing it a few meters away, it still smoldering as it hit the ground.

"Fox, we need to take out that mortar team, cover me." He gave a quick nod and I ran out from behind the warthog, battle rifle slung behind my back and chain gun firmly grasped in both hands, firing as I ran towards the APC. As I was running and firing, I managed to land a few rounds in the rotating twin plasma turret, disabling its ability to turn and target, rendering it effectively useless unless someone stood in front of its muzzle. As I reached the APC, I moved around to the rear of it and began firing rounds into the personnel area of it, ripping through the metal drivers' door and resulting in screams of pain as the large caliber rounds ripped through the pilots flesh, killing him. I then dropped the now empty weapon and pulled out my magnum, making sure I had killed the pilot by checking the now incredibly bloody cockpit. I then ran out of the back of the APC to see another mortar hit near the pelican, flipping the warthog thus causing Fox to dive and roll out of the way of the three and a quarter ton vehicle, still mostly unscathed. I then signaled for him to join me behind the disabled APC and he did so, arriving beside me, panting from the very fast sprint to me.

"Fox, I'm going to go take out the mortar position, you cover me from here with this." I handed him my battle rifle and ammo and took his assault rifle and ammo. He nodded and checked the ammo counter, it read out **15 rounds**. I then nodded and took off around the armored vehicle, sprinting towards the enemy mortar team, firing the assault rifle on their position as I went, and watching two of them jump back in pain as the thirty caliber rounds passed through them. I then took cover behind an overturned car to reload, having plasma bolts pass over my head, only to lessen bit by bit as round after round came from Fox's position. I reloaded within a few seconds and leaped back out into the open, sprinting towards the enemy position again and dodging plasma blots along the way. I reached the enemy position after a few seconds and made contact with the first enemy personnel, firing a short controlled burst into him as I did so. The second enemy turned to see me, training his weapon on my person and squeezing the trigger, only to have me quickly sidestep, all his rounds miss, and the butt of my rifle smash into his face. As I trained my rifle on the final enemy, he jumped to the side, causing my shots to miss and kicked my rifle, sending it from my hands. I turned to face him and he threw a punch at my head, I leaned to the side and grabbed his wrist, breaking it with a strong twist. He seemed to not be phased at all by this and simply threw an punch with his other hand, me catching it and stepping 'just so', causing him to trip and land on his face, however, he quickly rolled onto his back and attempted to get up, only to have his throat met by my boot, instantly breaking his neck. Fox then ran up to me rifle at the ready as I turned around, he fired, and I felt the rounds pass directly by my head. I moved very quickly, still being fueled by a combat induced adrenaline rush and grabbed him by the throat.

"What are you thinking Fox boy! Are you on their side or somethin'!?" all he could do was point a bit to something behind me. I turned around and saw a sixth enemy individual, flesh blood oozing from its head. I dropped Fox, apologizing for what I did.

"It's alright John, I've had moments like that before too." I nodded and we both began to jog back to the downed pelican dropship. As we neared it, we could hear slight crying/sobbing, but not from pain it seemed, more out of sadness. As we neared the rear of the pelican, we saw Lawson sitting partially upright against the personnel benches and a small meerkat, probably only about seven or eight years old. Lawson turned to me and said, "The last mortar killed his family, he crawled out from under the rubble and hid behind the warthog, curled up in a little ball." The young child looked up at me and seemed to stop crying a bit.

"My friend told me about you, your name is John isn't it?" he managed to say in between the light sobs.

"Yes, my name is John. What is your name?" I asked, kneeling down to his level in order to see him eye to eye and not appear so threatening.

"My name is mark and my friends name is matt." I nodded and said to Fox and Lawson, "Alright, let's move out, Fox pick him up. Lawson, do you think you could hold this little guy in your lap?" he nodded and I picked Lawson up a bit, supporting him as he limped to the rear exit of the pelican. I set him down and got out of the pelican to go try and flip the warthog.

"Hey Fox, come help me real quick." He came over beside me and we both gripped the right side of the warthog, the side touching the ground.

"Okay, on three, 1…2…3, heave." After about ten seconds of strong lifting, the warthog flipped over, right side up.

"Alright, let's load up and get outta here." They all nodded, except for Mark, still being terrified of the situation and all. I picked up Lawson again and put him into the passenger seat, setting Mark in his lap afterwards. Fox climbed up into the gunner seat and got ready to cover us from all around. I jumped up into the drivers' seat and cut the warthog on, gunned it, and got out of there, heading towards the main base to drop off Lawson and the newly acquired civilian before they both became casualties, and then join up with the rest of our combat group in their firefight.

As we sped along towards the base, I could only think of how it was going and hope that everyone would survive this war.


	14. Chapter 14 The War Begins: Part II

Chapter 14 The War Begins: Part II

I punched the gas as far as it could go and the assault vehicle rounded off near eighty miles an hour, bouncing over potholes left by explosive ordinance and their resulting scattered piles of rubble. I looked back to see Fox crouching behind the massive chain gun, knees bent and a tight grip on the firing handles to keep himself from falling. We passed through a firefight, not stopping to offer assistance, although, Fox did manage to get a couple of rounds off in the general direction of the enemy, somewhat suppressing them but also drawing fire towards our vehicle, though all the plasma bolts missed by a long shot. We simply sped along until the base was in sight, Fox yelling and signaling for the guards to open the gate. The gate opened right before we slammed into it, leaving a marginal gap for the nine foot wide assault vehicle to barrel through. As we passed through the gate, I turned the wheels hard to the right and slammed on the brakes, throwing the three and a quarter ton jeep into a power slide, stopping us mere feet from a concrete block wall.

I reached up to my ear piece comm. unit, trying to contact Bradford.

"Bradford, this is Captain Carter, what is your location in the base?"

"I am in the base hospital Cap', I've got a visual on y'all right now, building on your left, two hundred meters. I'll be at the front."

"Gotcha, be there in a sec', Lawson's injured real bad 'kay."

"Affirmative, I'll have a stretcher brought out."

I turned the vehicle and sped off towards the hospital, reaching it in a little less than fifteen seconds and stopping us right outside the front of it. Bradford was there waiting with a two nurses and a stretcher for us. I jumped out and pulled Mark off of Lawson's lap and setting him down on the ground, pointing towards the hospital doors, telling him to go in there. He ran into the hospital and I proceeded to lift the now comatose Lawson out of the passenger seat and onto the stretcher. After doing so, I asked one of the nurses as to the location of the head commanders building, she pointed to a heavily armed and armored bunker in the center of the base layout, I nodded and jumped back into the drivers' seat, gunning the 'hog towards the building.

Upon arriving there, Fox and I both jumped out of the warthog and ran up to the structures entrance. As we neared it, no guards attempted to stop us…for reasons unknown to me. Perhaps it was because they recognized Fox or maybe were astonished that I was helping them fight even though they could see no vested interest on my part for it, though I had a very high interest in protecting Corneria. We ran down the main hall to the head officers' mission command room. We barged in and were met, not by general Pepper as we expected, instead, a major Ryan Carrey. Fox instantly took note of this and showed so with a puzzled look on his face. I however did not take notice straight away and went into explaining why we were there.

"Major Carrey, Captain John Carter of the UNSC, requesting permission to land our battle class cruiser within base confines."

"Reason being Captain?"

"Sir, our equipment and weapons are onboard. With our entire arsenal on the ground, the Starfox team and mine will be of much more assistance to the Cornerian ground forces."

"Permission granted, notify your shipboard crew that they may land in hangar delta four, is that all?"

"No sir, where is the most concentrated of the ground war?"

"Most concentrated area, ha, this entire system is under attack. All planets are under siege from the free fighters, but here, here the ground fight is most concentrated in the northeast part of the city, there is however a fireteam pinned down here" he said as he pointed to a holographic diagram of the city, "if you could get them operational again, then they could proceed to the northeasterly city section with you and the Starfox team."

I nodded; Fox and I then turned and left the office, running back down the hall towards the buildings exit and our warthog. We got to the warthog a short time later and Fox opted to ride in the passenger seat rather than to be thrown about in the turret. As we both got in, I handed him the radio transceiver and told him to contact our fireteam, figure out their situation, and tell them to get their asses to grid coordinates seven niner by eight four two, he nodded and got on it right away as I began to drive towards the base exit.

Meanwhile

"C'mon Carter, where are you at. Everyone down, incoming artillery strike." Two thunderous booms rocked the entire area, even inside the sixty ton battle tank where Norris, Krystal, and Katt all sat, covering the rest of the fireteam with its ninety mm HE-T rounds and machine gun. Norris looked back through the viewport/targeting system of the tank and saw the wreckage outside. The two previous artillery rounds had destroyed an apartment complex, leaving a smoking pile of rubble in their wake. She turned the tanks' turret and targeted a distant enemy armored vehicle, achieving a lock, firing and destroying it. As her and her two furry comrades turned the turret again to spot for other targets, the radio crackled to life, nearly causing them to jump out of their skin.

"Fireteam one, this is Fox, Carter and I are on the way, situation…over."

"'bout time, we're under heavy fire from all sides, lost contact with sniper team about ten minutes ago, no new casualties or injuries sustained, just give us some damn fire support."

"Roger, ETA…two minutes, begin pressing towards grid coordinates seven niner by eight four two…over."

"Roger that…fireteam one, fall back to designated grid coordinates on HUD displays…over."

"Got it Norris, falling back."

Right after that, all nine members of our fireteam began to mobilize towards the designated grid coordinates, unknown to them that this was a fire support maneuver on our part.

I then got on the radio and said, "Fireteam one, please be notified, designated grid point is hot…lock and load."

"Roger assault, weapons hot."

Fox and I sped on towards the grid point, ready to take on anything. We arrived shortly after in what looked more like a freakin' nuclear test site than an urban combat zone. We quickly surveyed the area and listened intently for anything, hearing only slight plasma weapons report in the nearby area.

"Fox, you're driving this time, I'm gunnin'." He nodded and got out of the passenger seat as I got out of the drivers seat and into the turret, he climbed in and hit the gas, taking us closer and closer to the inherent combat that was ahead of us. He drove excellently, for having only learned how to in the relatively small hangar of the Atlas.

As we neared the combat zone, several enemies turned to see us; however, these were new enemies, dinosaur looking in appearance, yet walked upright and carried crude plasma weapons as the other enemies did. They were no match for the fifty cal chain gun though, making quick work of several of them in a row in just a second. Fox saw a rode concrete road block roughly half a mile in front of us, heavily guarded by enemy personnel and weaponry. I slammed on the brakes and slid to a halt.

"Fox get back in the passenger seat and when I throw us into a power slide…just hold on for dear life." He looked at me a bit quizzically as he got in the passenger seat, but readied his rifle and took aim at the enemies, firing the fully automatic assault rifle into the roadblock, creating confused havoc amongst the guards. I took off, pressing on the gas as hard as I could in order to gain as much speed in the short distance we had as possible.

When we got roughly fifty or sixty meters from the roadblock, I initiated a power slide and Fox, as I told him to earlier, sat as deep in his seat as possible and held onto everything he could for dear life. As the M-12 neared the barricade, still moving at nearly fifty miles an hour even in the power slide, I tossed an armed grenade out my side of the 'hog, watching it hit the ground, roll, bounce, and overall decrease in speed sharply. The sliding vehicle passing over it as it detonated, lift the M-12 off of the ground and into a barrel roll type spin over the barricade, doing no damage to the undercarriage of the vehicle other than a few scratches here and there.

The warthog did a complete mid-air roll, landing all four wheels squarely back on the ground except on the opposite side of the barricade, astonishing and terrifying the enemy units surrounding the immediate area, sending them running for cover as they realized that their little roadblock did nothing to hamper our forward push.

As the enemies fled the area and the warthog was landing back on the roadway, I turned the wheels just a bit to the left, allowing for the continued sideways motion of the over three ton vehicle to be transferred into the capable rolling motion of the wheels, straightening it back out and allowing us to keep on moving towards our objective. I looked over at Fox, who was still holding onto the roll bar and side of his seat with a death grip and asked, "What's wrong Fox, aint never done nothin' like that?"

He turned his head to look back at me and replied, "Yeah, I have done stuff like that tons of times…just not in a car. Where the hell did you learn how to do that anyway?"

"I saw it in a video game once, figured it could actually work…cool huh." He looked at me with a blank, yet terrified, confused, freaked out kind of look that said, "You could have fuckin' killed us dumb ass."

I simply nodded at his expression and turned my attention back to the road, seeing a small enemy hover transport with a mounted plasma cannon at the rear, very similar in the way that an M41 was mounted on the M-12 warthog. I laid on the on the gas, accelerating the three and a quarter ton jeep to seventy mph, threw it into another power slide as the enemy unit in the gun position tried to get a bead on us and rammed the side of the warthog into the small transport, causing it to lose control and careen into a nearby concrete building, eliminating all threat within its hold.

We kept on at the pace of sixty mph for another twenty seconds until we arrived at the combat area where the Cornerian fireteam was pinned down. As I scanned the area, I noticed a slight glint of something atop a building but could not make it out from my current distance, so I stopped the 'hog, hopped out and grabbed my battle rifle, scanning that rooftop with its scope attachment. As I looked through the scope at the roof, a smile crept across my face and I turned to Fox and said, "We got sniper support, the rest of our teams are already here and in position."

No sooner than I had said that than the radio crackled and Norris' voice came over the speaker.

"Okay Cap', we're all in position, ready to go on your mark."

"Roger Norris, inbound to said grid point from southwest, sniper team, be advised, hostiles mixed with friendlies. I say again, hostiles mixed with friendlies, do you copy?"

"Yes sir, eyes open for hostile ground troops."

"Good, fireteam one members, do you copy?"

Multiple voices came over the radio, all acknowledging my previous warning. Katts voice then came over the radio, asking, "John, what are we here for exactly?"

I got back on the radio and replied, "There is a Cornerian ground fireteam pinned down in this area. We need to get them out of their problematic situation and accompany them to the northeast section of the city, where the most concentrated of the fighting is."

"Okay, I think we're all ready to go now, awaiting your signal."

"Alright everyone, Fox and I are going in first. We will draw their fire…sniper team take out immediate soft target threats. Norris, Krystal, and Katt, you will need to take out the vehicles in the area, make your shots count. Remaining team members, Alex, Rawlings and Mendoza…you three are to cover Fox and I from any flanking enemies, what is the status of your warthog?"

"Well Cap', it's not a pretty picture. The last fire fight did a lot of damage to it. We have lost fifty percent of the hydraulic pressure in the gun turret and most of the front and drivers' side armor is melted off. We can give you ample fire support though, I think." Was Mendoza's reply to my inquiry.

"Okay then, make sure you don't get too far out into the open so as to not be able to find cover if you get in a bind, got it."

"Got it, ready to go when you are." I nodded to no one in particular and jumped back into the drivers' seat, gunning the 'hog to the point where the whole thing rumbled from the power in the twelve cylinder engine. We rapidly accelerated toward a main road, business, restaurant, and hotel buildings lining it. As soon as we emerged into the open of the daylight, enemy fire poured down on us, leaving carbon scoring and molten road, dirt, or metal whenever a plasma bolt hit.

As I drove on, Fox had his right foot up on the dash, left leg supporting him from underneath in the seat, leaning precariously close to the open passenger section of the warthog, and firing his assault rifle at any enemy personnel that dared poke their heads out to aim their weapons or see what was happening. As we neared a large building, a hotel of some kind, a rocket came out of nowhere and with only milliseconds to react; I threw the warthog into an incredibly hard hand turn, but the three ton plus vehicle did not yield like a sports car and slid straight on, the rocket hitting the ground directly behind us and detonating, sending a shockwave through the area, shattering windows and flipping the warthog side over side and in the process, rendering Fox and I nearly deaf.

As the warthog flipped through the air, my mind and body entered a state, experienced only by very few select individuals in the entire course of human history, known as Spartan time. Adrenaline surged through my veins, increasing my perceptive rate and causing everything else to seem as if it were traveling in slow motion as my brain was taking in all the surrounding information at a rate five to six times faster than that of a normal soldier. I watched as my surroundings moved around me at an intensively slow seeming rate.

Being in this state, I could also think faster and seeing Fox get thrown from the passenger seat, I pushed out of the drivers' seat with all the strength and power I could manage and rocketed towards the ground at what still seemed painfully slow. Once my hands contacted the ground, I ducked and went into a swat roll. As my feet came over the rest of my body and began to contact the ground, my peripheral vision warned me of another incoming rocket, very near where I was and traveling parallel to the ground. As soon as my feet contacted the ground, I pushed off again jumping at least three meters into the air, watching the rocket pass under me, able to examine its every feature, the fins, the warhead tip, and body, watching it spin and move on into empty air.

As I re-contacted the ground, I executed another roll and pulled my battle rifle from its slung position, firing off rounds at the nearby enemies I could see. I turned just in time to see one of the fireteams' tank rounds smash into the building that the rocket came from, passing through the thin outer wall and exploding on the inside, ripping the room apart along with anyone in it. Bricks, concrete, and steel reinforcing bar all fell in slow motion, relative to my mind and impacted the ground with a muffled crash, as I was still slightly deafened by the initial rockets blast.

I looked over and saw Fox lying motionless on the roadway, plasma bolts passing a bit too close to him for comfort. I sprinted towards him and as I was running, leaned over and scooped him up by the waist, catching a few plasma bolts in the left side of my armor and slinging him onto my shoulder and firing my rifle with my left hand in burst mode, each three round succession sounding louder and louder as the temporary deafness wore off. I neared a doorway to a business type building and nearly dropkicked it open, landing back squarely on my feet and running through the now open passage.

Once inside, I set Fox down against a desk and grabbed his pistol, accompanying it with my own as I slung my rifle and proceeded to clear the building of any enemy personnel.

I turned and ran up the stairs to the second floor, instantly met by a wave of plasma bolts that burned into and charred the surrounding wood paneling, nearly setting it on fire. I however had an advantage over my adversaries; my weapons could shoot through semi solid objects, such as sheetrock, whereas plasma can not. With this in mind, I leaned out of my covered position and judged where my enemy was behind the corner of the wall and opened fire, both magnums echoing their rapid fire reports down the hall, the fifty caliber slugs pounding into and passing through the relatively weak sheetrock wall cover.

After that, I ceased fire and saw a paw fall out from the cover of the wall, soaked with red blood. I quickly dropped the magazines out of my pistols and reloaded, knowing full well that more enemy personnel most likely lurked within the confines of these walls. After reloading, I scanned around the corner, sweeping left to right with my pistols and vice versa, making sure I was not to be ambushed. I came to a closed door at the end of the hall and pressed my ear up to it listening for anything at all. All I heard was the muffled report of what sounded like a blaster rifle on the other side. I thought to myself for a second of a plan and finally decided on what to do; I would kick the door in, rush in there and secure the room. Little did I know who was on the other side.

I followed through with most of my plan, the kicking the door in part but not the clearing of the room, as I was met by Cornerian Marine Corps fireteam zulu niner. As I entered, three Cornerian marines turned from their position at the windows, training their weapons on me. I knew these guys meant business; now I just needed to make sure they knew I was on their side.

I raised both of my hands up and took my fingers off of the triggers of the magnums, watching each of my allies moves intently so as to predict their next move. Two of them approached me and told me to get down on the floor, I did so and they kicked my weapons away from me, holding me down with a blaster rifle muzzle to the back. I looked up at their commander, a tall, muscularly built, and stoic wolf, a sergeant too if I remember the rank structure Fox showed me right. He asked me what my business there was and I explained, "I'm here with the Starfox team to get your asses unpinned down by order of Major Carrey."

He looked stunned that I had used his commanding officers name, even more so at the fact that I was here to get them out of this mess though. He simply nodded and signaled for his men to let me up, they did so and handed back my weapons.

"Sorry sir, Sergeant Brian Simmons, Cornerian Marine Corps, and you are?" he said as he extended his paw to shake my hand.

"Captain John Carter, UNSC Marine Corps. Where is the rest of your fire team?" I said as I returned his friendly gesture.

"They're about a block away, our convoy was hit by rocket attack and we all got separated. Our numbers stand at us three here and five more over there, we lost a lot of men in the ambush, no injuries though."

"I understand, my team is down the road a bit. Fox McCloud and I were making an assault run to draw enemy fire so our snipers could take them out and we were hit with a rocket." As soon as I finished explaining this, another explosion shook the building causing weakened sheetrock to fall, accompanied by dust and glass from the windows.

"That is my teams' tank; we should move out and get the rest of your team. We have orders to proceed to the northeast section of the city and assist in the ground war there, understood?"

All three of them nodded with a reassuring, "Sir, yes sir."

We all then move back down the hallway to the stairs and bounded down them rather quickly. When we arrived at the bottom of the stairway, Fox was still where I had left him but was somewhat awake now and holding his arm while groaning in pain. I knelt down beside him and examined his arm, concluding that it was definitely broken. I slipped his magnum back into his leg holster and told him that I was going to pick him up and put him on my shoulder. He nodded and I leaned over to pick him up, but I never got to. As I was about to lift him up, an artillery shell hit the building across the street, sending debris flying towards the building we were in and the resulting shockwave causing parts of the ceiling to cave, rafters coming down on us. I leaned over and covered Fox as best I could and felt a rafter nail me in the back, my armor taking most of the brunt of the force, but still knocking me over.

After the building quit caving, I glanced around; noticing one of the marines was pinned down by a heavy support beam, still alive, but blood slowly trickling down from the side of his mouth. Sergeant Simmons was under a pile of rubble, tail slightly flicking as he tried to most likely gasp for air or try and get himself free. I jumped up and climbed over there, digging him out in a matter of seconds and helping him out of the rubble. He then got his bearings and went to try and get the beam off of his comrade. He could not by himself, so I went over there and helped him lift the heavy steel beam off of the soldier. As Simmons helped him up, I went back to looking for the other marine, only to find that a fallen rafter had broken his neck. Fox, Simmons, and the injured marine could only look on as I ran, jumped over the rubble blocking the door and disappeared from their sight.

At seeing this, Simmons yelled out, "What the hell does he think he's doing, he's gonna draw the fires of hell to fuckin' building. He'll get us all killed with himself."

Fox, listening to everything Simmons said, simply turned to him and replied in a very calm manner, "Trust me on this, if he dies, we all should have been dead long ago. Nothin' can kill him it seems. He'll show them free fighters that if they wanted to mess with Corneria, they picked the wrong fuckin' time to pick a fight."


	15. Chapter 15 The War Begins: Part III

Chapter 15 The War Begins: Part III

As I ran out into the open street way, I looked left and right, scanning for enemies. Seeing one taking cover behind a crashed hover car. I pulled my battle rifle and military drilling, training, and combat honed skill came into play instantaneously.

Without even needing to take aim, I cracked off a shot. The armor piercing round passing through the many metal layers of the hover car and then through the enemy soldier, dropping him to the ground. At this time again, my mind was in the state of Spartan time and I watched as a sniper rifle round passed by my head and through the head of the unfortunate enemy soldier in its path. I didn't even flinch though, military bearing took control and I simply kept singling out targets and downing them, one after another.

By this time I had taken cover behind the M-12 that had been mauled by a rocket and slung my battle rifle on my back, grabbing the shotgun that was always in between the seats of my 'hog. I looked over the side of the flipped M-12 and saw an enemy group moving towards my position. I turned about to see how the rest of my team was fairing, but they were in no better of a situation. The sniper team was busy taking out ground soldiers while the tank and others on the ground fired into building to prevent counter sniping.

Realizing that I was not going to receive assistance from my team, I steeled myself for what was to happen next. I was going to have to fight off that group of enemy soldiers myself, no assistance, one versus almost twenty. As I took a moment to think over my dilemma, I thought to the effect of what would happen if I failed. If I did fail, Fox, along with the rest of the fireteam would die. They would be overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemy forces closing in on us all. I could not fail; it was my responsibility not to.

With this in mind, I chambered the first shell into the shotgun and paused for a split second as I gave my plan a final mental rundown/check. I nodded to myself and jumped up onto the top of the warthog, which had been lying on its side the whole time, took a quick aim at the center mass of the group and fired, the eight gauge shell sending fifteen high density pellets towards its target at fifteen hundred feet per second, tearing into a few of the soldiers and causing others to freak as their comrades screamed in pain from the barrage of lead.

As the group was disorganized and lacked cohesion, I took my opportunity to attack further. Pulling a smoke grenade from my combat pack and activating it, slight flumes of smoke pouring out of the top as the time fuse burned down. I tossed it into their midst and the device that would normally be used for cover on a retreat or extraction became my offensive weapon.

As the dark smoke billowed out and remained within the immediate area, I jumped into its midst, striking the first enemy soldier in the head with the butt of my rifle, another trying to run up behind me but being met instead with a blast of lead as I fired another shell under my left arm. Two soldiers instantly rushed me directly after that and I pumped the shotgun in a split second, swinging it into the left ribcage of the first soldier and firing a blast into the one behind him, eliminating both. As I finished that technique, another enemy rushed from behind, being met with the butt of my weapon as it contacted his muzzle. I then tossed the scattergun up in the air and caught it at the end of the barrel, holding it like a baseball bat and eliminating two more enemies with one swing and reversing it back to where I was holding it normally. Upon completing this task, I saw out of the corner of my eye, four enemies attempting to rush me at once and pumped my shotgun. The first two were in line and I swung down on the firsts head, firing the chambered shell into the one that was following suit. The third enemy was a bit to the left and closer to me than the other two were, weapon raised to strike me squarely in the face, he never got the chance. My left elbow reached his throat before he met me with his weapon. The fourth enemy attempting to attack me fired a few wildly aimed plasma bolts as his vision was impaired by the smokescreen; he never saw my boot coming at the side of his head. Upon defeating them, the fight escalated rapidly. I was rushed from multiple sides in rapid succession, yet retained my calm and simply swung, fired and cocked the shotgun with what I would say was the elegance and grace that one would see in a ballet, not in a smoky combat zone. After depleting all the shells from the shotgun, no more enemies attempted to attack or fire for that matter, I heard nothing but silence.

As I walked out of the smoke, nearly all of me covered with some amount of blood splatter from the fight, I saw my fireteam standing at the end of what a sign said was Main Street. They were simply standing there, stunned expressions on their faces, seemingly shocked out of ability to move at what just happened. Not only that, but there were no enemy soldiers anywhere to be seen, they had all fled the area.

As the smoke cleared behind me, my teammates got a chance to see just what happened under cover of the smokescreen and their expressions seemed to get even more stunned, yet my team members who saw started cheering at seeing what I did. I turned around, really seeing the carnage for the first time as I was not counting how many I fought and killed.

I gazed upon what I had done, the smoke till clearing a bit and twenty nine enemy bodies on the ground, blood pooling under each one. I turned back around and walked into the building where Fox and Sergeant Simmons were still at. Once inside, Fox said, "See, I told you nothin' could kill him, aint that right John?"

I gave no response other than, "C'mon, it's time to move out."

He just gave me a confused look at my lack of response but managed to get up and walk out behind me, Simmons and the other marine assisting him with his broken arm.

Once outside, Fox looked over at the recent carnage and having heard the shotgun blasts, put two and two together real fast.

"John…y, you did all that?"

I looked over at the sight and gave a depressed looking nod. Fox, Simmons and the marine all stopped and looked at the carnage, then back to my blood covered armor and shotgun. We kept walking back towards the rest of our fireteam, silent the whole way.

As we reached the rest of the group, four more Cornerian marines came running out from an alley way explaining to their sergeant that the enemy just fled the area, just dropped everything and left, in a hurry too. After they asked him why he thought they just up and left, he pointed at me, then to the twenty nine bodies on the road up from us. They looked stunned as well at that and kept their distance from me.

The sniper team was now on the ground and everyone else was out of their vehicles, waiting for me to say something, so I did.

"Load up, we're heading back to the base, this war aint gonna be won in a day." And with that, everyone got in their respective vehicles, the sniper team, Fox, the marines and I on top of the tank to ride back to the base. This was going to be a long campaign for all of us.

At the Enemy Stronghold: Planet Venom

"My lord, all planets are under siege as you commanded. Sauria is estimated to fall within the weeks end as is Titania."

"Excellent, how the war on Corneria is going…as planned?" asked an evil sounding voice, shrouded by a black veil and sitting upon his throne within the darkness of the room he was in.

"No my lord, I regret to inform you that our ground attack forces have sent transmissions telling of a strange being, accompanied by others like it. They tell that it has no fur, scales, or feathers of any sort but that on its head and it fights with tenacity like none has ever seen, it defeated one of our shock trooper units earlier this day causing the rest of our forces to withdraw from that section of the city."

"I see, and what of the Starfox team?"

"They accompany the being, yet do not fight like it."

"Very well, inform me more on this unknown being once more information is gathered on it."


	16. Chapter 16 Contact: Home

Chapter 16 Contact: Home

:/ Captains Log – 25 July 2559 //

Message to friends and relatives of:

Private Rick Espinoza

Private First Class Chris Moore

Corporal Arthur Jennings

Corporal Richard Lawson

Sergeant Marcus Rawlings

Sergeant First Class Elliot Mendoza

2nd Lieutenant Rachel Norris

2nd lieutenant Stephanie Bradford

I regret to inform you that the above combat personnel were killed in action while on assignment in designated system listed classified until further notice by UNSC ONI and HIGHCOM.

As of four months ago, new races of intelligent alien beings have been discovered: further information is classified other than that this new race is non hostile, but are currently in a war with another alien from a nearby system.

As per deceased military personnel code 72484-63, the previously listed combat members' bodies have been stored in cryogenic hold, from which they will not be released until return to UNSC controlled space, at which time, according to final wishes of each individual stated in their wills, they will receive a full dress military funeral.

I am deeply sorry for each and every one of your losses, as I am also saddened at losing such valuable and courageous comrades as well as friends.

: // End civilian open document; ///

: // UNSC ONI classified document; open //

As of four months ago, new races of intelligent alien beings have been discovered in designated system: this new race is non hostile, but are currently in a war with another alien race from a nearby system.

These new races are known as Lylatians and are incredibly intelligent. They have a speakable language known on Earth as Standard English, are capable of space travel as they have large military and civilian class cruisers, frigates, transports, and destroyers.

I am currently staying with and accompanying a mercenary team known as 'Starfox' and helping them engage their enemy, as doing so, if successful, will solidify an alliance with them and a planet for human population.

Acquired information on new alien races: As previously stated, they are technologically advanced, but lack ground military strength yet have an amazingly skilled air and space combat force.

This new alien race is not similar in any ways to that of the covenant race. They are divided by species as follows: Felines, Vulpines, Avians, Simians, and Canines to name a few.

As you may be wondering, yes, the beings in this system are partially humanized looking versions of animals resident to earth and they retain most of the same characteristics, being that they have fur, feathers, or scales, the same facial characteristics and ears, and tails.

There is no hierarchical social order as the resident government is very similar to that of twenty sixth century Government on earth.

I have spoken to the head military commander and he has expressed his consent for humans to populate a suitable planet in this system, which is known as Lylat and the planets' name is Fortuna. He has also expressed his wishes to formulate an alliance with the human race. I am sending details on the previously stated planet and several of the species here, please review them.

By the time you receive this message, I may already be dead. Coordinates of the planet and the main Capitol planet of Lylat, known as Corneria, are attached within the message, as are details on friendly Lylatian ships and fighters, please also review the Cornerian emblem carefully, all the military personnel as well as combat ships bear it.

: // Classified document close//

"Well Fox, you really think this will work?"

"Yeah, Beltino Toad's a genius; he can get anything to work if he wants it to. Is the message ready?"

"Yeah, it's all ready to go; we can send it on through."

"Alright Beltino, get the slipspace gate up, we're sending this message through."

"Got it Fox, gate forming, give it a few more seconds…and there we have it, gate up, get that message through there."

As soon as Beltino gave that order, all the crew in the room began to type away furiously at their control stations, sending codes and coordinates to the computer mainframe so as to make sure that my kind got it.

Meanwhile: Sol System, Planet Earth orbit: aboard defense frigate _Interceptor_

"Captain, we're getting an energy spike in system…it's a slipspace jump reading."

"What? Lieutenant, bring all crew to battle stations now, inbound slipspace jump detected."

"Sir."

"Yes lieutenant."

"The slipspace jump has been completed…no more readings on the screens."

"What, what are you telling me lieutenant. That it was a fake slipspace jump?"

"No sir, there was a transmission emitted from the slipspace energy reading point. We intercepted it, just one thing though…"

"What is that lieutenant?"

"It's from a UNSC cruiser known as the _Atlas_…it was from Captain John Carter, on assignment to find another planet for human population. It was directed to the ONI, but we got in its way."

"Oh my god, Lieutenant Marks…new objective, set us up a secure comm. line to ONI; we got something serious on our hands here."

"Yes sir captain."

Back in Lylat, Orbital Gate

"Do you think they got it John?"

"I don't know Katt; I can only hope they did. If they did and they believe that it is legit', then they might send a combat group to assist us all."

"Dude, if your race sent in a combat group, man we could friggin' murder these bastards." Exclaimed a one, Falco Lombardi.

"Maybe, let's just hope they got it for now. If they did, great, if not, well can't say we didn't try."

"Hey John."

"Yeah Alex."

"Are there more like you, I mean Spartans and all?"

"No, I'm, officially, the last one. There was one other I fought along side for most of my time in combat, but he went MIA shortly after destroying the base of operations of our enemy. No one knows exactly what happened to him though."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that." As I stood looking out of the viewport on the control deck, a white, silky soft, furry arm wrapped around my waist and the rest of a white feline leaned up against my side.

Normally, I would have felt rather awkward being in that situation, but I didn't resist it as I thought I would have. I just stood there and let her lean against me, her arm around my waist, eyes searching for what I was looking at in the dark of space; I was looking for nothing though.

"_Whoa, why am I feeling this way right now? Am I sweating? I feel all funny inside, why is she hugging me like this? Maybe I should just return the gesture."_

I let my arm slide around her back and come to rest on the right side of her waist.


	17. Chapter 17: 31 July 2559

Chapter 17: 31 July 2559

Combat Journal entry: John Carter, 31 July 2559

We are within range of the planet, Venom as of 0436 hours this morning and plan to launch the full scale ground assault at 0830 hours. We also have learned that the enemy is fighting a 'holy war' against this system because their god wills it.

To whoever may find this, if I die, tell whoever you may that I tried, and died so that an alliance would be forged between Cornerians and humans alike.

Roughly four hours later: Planet, Venom; Just outside Venoms orbit lock

"Captain Carter, multiple single ships inbound. Four battle cruisers on course to intercept us, orders?"

"Engage single ships and set me a course for bearing seven seven delta niner, relative to the system parallel, engines two hundred and fifty percent. Engage single ships…now."

The sound of the numerous fifty millimeter auto cannons resonated throughout the ships corridors, causing ever slight vibration of the walls and floor from the sound waves.

As my ship sped forward, an enemy battle cruiser cut in front of us and with near nanosecond reflexes, Gene fired the emergency attitude thrusters, knocking us out of the previous collision course that had been set. As I looked at the aft camera screen, I could see the Cornerian fleet engaging an enemy battle group in the distance, plasma and lasers lighting up the void of space as their intense heat left ionized hydrogen in its wake.

"Captain, the Starfox team has successfully landed within attack range of the enemy base, switching ship to my control now. Good luck."

"Thank you Gene, I'll need it."

With that being said, I got up from my command seat and exited the bridge, sprinting down the corridors and picking up my already placed gear and donning it. Just as I was rounding the last turn to the HEV pods, a proximity alarm went off, red lights flashing, signifying that the Atlas would be in some deep shit any second.

I was right. Genes voice blasted over the intercom system just as the ship was hit by whatever. I was thrown from my feet and into the nearby wall, my head knocking against it nicely.

The last thing I heard before I hit the floor was, "Mayday, mayday…UNSC battle cruiser delta delta 4367, request assistance, hull breached, port side, sealing bulkhead and blast doors, breach contained, I say again, UNSC battle cruiser delta delta 43………….."

I hit the floor and everything went dark.

A few moments earlier, on the ground

"I'm dry, need a mag over here."

"Here catch, target left."

"I got it."

"Aaaaagghh, I'm hit, medic!"

"Hold still…it's not that serious…relax damn it!"

"Captain McCloud, what is the status of the ground battle?" a now very tired looking General Pepper inquired over the comm. channel.

"Not too good general, the enemy has taken heavy casualties, though we are pinned down at the LZ and are running low on ammo. What is the status of our backup?"

"From what I understand, he should be there any second now."

"Good, we're about to get our asses handed to u..."

They were cut off as a frantic sounding Gene cut into the conversation over all friendly channels.

"Mayday, mayday…UNSC battle cruiser delta delta 4367, request assistance, hull breached, port side, sealing bulkhead and blast doors, breach contained, I say again, UNSC battle cruiser delta delta 4367, we have a hull breach, requesting fire support and defense from nearby Cornerian fleet cruisers, fires on port side decks three, four and six, activating fire suppression systems, fire suppressed, status of Captain John Carter, unknown, searching camera system for said personnel member."

That last part echoed in every ones minds over and over.

"Holy shit, did she just say that his ship got blasted, what the fuck are we going to do now?" Exclaimed a now enraged Falco.

"We press on, we fight, he would have wanted us to." Answered a depressed looking Krystal.

"Yeah, let's go kick some ass for him." Said Slippy.

With the thought in mind that they had lost a dear friend to them, but of the entire group, a certain white feline seemed the saddest to hear the news. They then all pressed forward with renewed vigor to defeat the enemy.

Meanwhile, back in my mind

"_John"_

"_Huh, who's that?"_

"_You know me, don't you remember me…son."_

"_Dad?"_

"_Yes son, it's me, but only in your thoughts. Your friends need you, they cannot defeat this foe without your help, you are their only chance at victory, go, go help them now, it is your duty, have you not forgotten."_

"_No, I have not forgotten my duty father."_

"_Then go."_

My vision and hearing bled back in slowly, yet I still jumped up off the floor and grabbed my helmet, threw it on and began running towards the HEV pods again, not even paying any attention to the gash on the right side of my forehead, nor feeling its pain. I passed a security camera and Gene yelled out at me over the intercom, realizing what I was about to do, even in my current condition.

"Captain, it is highly probable that you will not survi…"

"Shutup Gene, ready the HEV pod for deployment."

"Negative Captain, HEV system is down from the impact."

"Fuck…status of the hangar?"

"Operational sir, but I would advise that you not pilot a dropship in your current condition. Perhaps I could land the cruis…"

"No!!! Open the hangar doors now."

"Yes captain."

As I ran towards the hangar, I could the massive door opening up, and the metallic clank that resonated once it was opened entirely. Upon reaching the hangar, I jumped into a pelican and began starting it up, completely disregarding the warm up procedures in doing so.

The pelican screamed to life and began to lift off of the floor of the hangar, moving towards the massive opening as I directed it.

Back on the ground

"Fox, how the hell are we supposed to get passed that?" Falco asked as he fired off another clip from his sniper rifle at the enemy troops guarding the main bases gate.

"I don't know, anyone got a rocket launcher here?"

"No, we had to use 'em on the tanks earlier." Katt responded.

"Well, this day couldn't get any worse could it now? One of our best friends and fighters is dead, we're pinned down in this hellhole, and there is a…what the fuck is that?"

Everyone looked up to see a pelican dropship flying through the atmosphere, red hot flame forming all around it. Falco looked through his sniper scope in full magnification and exclaimed, "Its John, he's alive."

Little did they know what I was planning to do next. While flying overhead, I managed to see the Starfox team members…pinned down by enemy fire, so I opened up on the enemy gate, utterly destroying anyone in its defenses, but doing little damage to the gate itself.

I then crashed the pelican into the gate, ripping the massive structure from its concrete basing, while I took a beating inside the cockpit.

Though dazed from my 'landing', I climbed out the back of the wrecked dropship and turned around the side of it to face any enemy troops who may have survived it.

As I ran into the base, I fired off shots everywhere and threw grenades, if not to kill, to really add to the confusion. As I entered, I was followed by an ecstatic to see me, Starfox team who fired off shots, covered, and fought just like I always remembered.

One of them said something to me, but I didn't hear it, it sounded garbled, but I paid no attention, however, it did worry some of the other team members, because what Fox said was something I should have showed some reaction to, at least a little. What I did not know was that my mind was filtering out all unnecessary ambience and only taking in information that it needed to survive, the purest form of an adrenaline rush.

We all progressed to the main building entrance and I kicked the massive steel door in, nearly tearing it off of its hinges. We rushed in and eliminated the enemy soldiers in the room, then progressed to the next, did the same, over and over. Enter, suppress, and move, I thought to myself as we progressed from room to room.

We then came to one final door and just as I was about to kick it in…it opened, revealing several enemies with blaster rifles and thick body armor standing around a case, a familiar figure resting within its hold. As I entered the room with my team and we fanned out, the soldiers fired their shots as we fired ours. Our rounds struck them dead center mass, but to no avail, the thick body armor stopped our rounds. As I looked to my left and right, I saw that my fellow team mates lay on the floor, gone, all of them.

I then turned back to the five troops standing around the case, now bowing on one knee, heads down in my direction, or so I thought.

"Ha, I new you would come and try to stop the will of the god, puny human, what can you do to stop what is destined."

I spun about, rifle raised to see the speaker, it was none other than that which Fox had described to me on many occasions; General Scales of the Sharpclaw tribe and beside him, a one, Andross.

"We have been waiting for a worthy opponent Carter, if you accept our challenge; we will let you die quickly. Do not worry about your friends though, those were simply stun blasts."

"Like hell I will!"

I then opened fire with my assault rifle on the both of them, though, to my extreme horror, all the rounds stopped short of both of them as Andross held his hand up, a small metal box attached to the palm of a glove there.

"Force field technology, your weapons are useless against us."

Before they could get out another word, I was sprinting full speed towards them, rifle held like a baseball bat, ready to strike either one.

As I came in range of Andross, I swung my rifle and caught him in the side of the chest, breaking my rifle in half and causing a metal hitting metal sound to echo through the great room, seemingly doing no damage to Andross. Before I could react, Scales had picked me up and was holding me by my throat, though I did not let that phase me. He then threw me a good ten meters back and I landed unceremoniously on my side, rolling to a stop.

I got back up and Andross remarked, "The stubborn fool persists, how noble. No matter, our god wills for you to be destroyed."

I then slowly looked back up at them and said, "Who says your 'god' wills it, what differences do you see between your god and me. Your god was the best warrior of our race and I was his friend, what would that make me then?"

"Wha…"

Before they could respond, I was running towards them again, knife drawn, back side of the blade along my wrist. As I neared them, Scales pulled out a large curved sword and swung it at me. I simply put my arm up and blocked it with the titanium knife, the reinforced blade cutting into the swords a bit as I deflected the blow and delivered a swift kick with my left leg to scales gut, dropping him to the floor as the force of it ripped skin slightly and crushed internal organs.

Before Andross could react, I was after him. My knife coming down on his arm bearing the force field generator, severing it from his body in an instant. He fell to his knees screaming in pain as blood gushed from the opening, spilling out onto the floor. By this time, Scales had worked up the strength to get back up and I sheathed my knife, not expecting an attack from either of them.

As I turned around to see Scales, I caught a glimpse of something moving towards me and I brought up my hands to catch it, it was in fact, Scales' sword blade, he was trying to stab me. I caught the blade as an inch of the tip got into my gut, blood poured from my hands around the blade as I gripped it, stopping him from running me through. As him and I stood there, fighting to gain control of the large weapon, all sorts of thoughts ran through my mind, thoughts of every face, person, friend I had lost in the past to enemies and all t of their family and friends I had to deliver the news to, and something inside me snapped as I realized what would happen to the Starfox team if I failed.

I gripped the blade tighter as adrenaline coursed through my veins and I pushed away with all my might, causing Scales to stumble back a bit as I did so. I then jumped up and wrapped my left arm around Scales throat and dug my knife into his ribcage, triggering a scream from him as the eight inch blade pierced him. I then pulled my knife back out and limped over to Falco's sniper rifle and picked it up, chambering a round as I did so and limped over to where I would be standing so that both of them would be in line.

As I got into position, Andross got back up and stood in front of Scales saying in a rather weak but still menacing tone, "You are curs…"

He was cut off as I raised the sniper rifle and fired the single _14.5 mm_ round at his head. My adrenaline rush was still extremely strong, thus I was in the most alert state humanly possible.

I watched the round spin in the air, leaving its trail of white behind it and strike Andross in the forehead, splattering it everywhere, exiting the back of his head, it passed through Scales chest to much the same effect, ripping a gaping hole where his nonexistent heart was, and killing him along with Andross. They fell to the ground in unison, and to me it seemed almost poetic as their bodies emitted a synchronized thud.

Everything then went dark again as I felt my body fall back to the floor.

"_Excellent job son"_

"_Mom, dad, is that you?"_


	18. Chapter 18: A Second Chance

Chapter 18: A Second Chance

"_Son… you have completed your task, and we are very proud of you, both your father and I and your sister."_

"_Hold on…am I…uhh…"_

"_Yes…and no. You have completed your first task, yet there are many more for you to overcome, some which will test you to your extremes. Do you understand John?"_

"_No, I do not. If I am not dead, then what am I doing here?"_

"_This is a glimpse John, we only have a short time to tell you things that you must know, though at the moment, you are dead…physically, your spirit will return to your body soon though."_

"_Huh, I…I don't understand, why am I dead, but not really dead?"_

"_You were predicted many centuries ago by a great prophet, related to us by our family emblem, to do great and mighty things for those your friends and humanity itself. In a small amount, you have done so, but are not finished with all your tasks. Does this make sense to you now?"_

"_A little bit, I am still confused as to what my tasks are that I must complete. Could you tell me?"_

"_No son, your mother and I cannot tell you the nature or purpose of your future tasks…that is for you to seek out yourself, we can, however, give you a clue as to the nature of your next quest. Energy takes the path of least resistance, as does water, neither of these can do anything useful, other than remain stagnant, without a path."_

"_What does that mean?"_

"_I'm sorry son, your time here is up, you must return to your friends. Goodbye John, keep us in your thoughts my son."_

I then gasped as I felt my spirit self being put back into my physical body.

I awoke within a dark, enclosed space, and instantly reacting to the effects of claustrophobia, started to hit the very close and solid walls of what seemed to be a capsule that I was in. the top opened rapidly, seeming to fly off of the box as a very freaked out looking Corporal, looked in at me. What freaked me out was that he was human.

I took the opportunity of his hesitation to speak first…rather forcefully if I do say so myself.

"What the fuck am I doing in this damn box Corporal?"

"Si…Sir…you…you were…holy shit!"

He then blacked out and hit the floor.

Apparently, others had heard the commotion from the room we were in and came running through the door. Among those that ran in was one of my best friends, someone I had known since I was in elementary school; Captain Ben Baker, 105th ODST platoon.

He was the first to speak this time.

"Holy fucking shit…Carter, how the fuck…you were dead, like dead dead, gone. We reviewed your combat video; you were fucking stabbed with a sword…whoa, you are one lucky son of bitch."

"Yeah I guess, now what the hell was I in this damn box for?"

"You were dead, you died. We were getting ready for the funeral, that box was your casket."

I looked down at the box and realized he was correct, it was a casket…my casket, the one I would have been drifting through space in endlessly, forever. I also took notice of the fact that I was in my dress uniform, two new medals accompanying my various other awards, one of which I recognized as the medal of valor, the other of which I had no clue.

I then climbed out of the box, feeling the pain in my gut from where I had been stabbed, though it was lessened to a much greater degree by now and began walking over towards Baker and the rest of the group, of whom touched me as I neared them to make certain that they weren't going mad.

"So uhh, Baker, what's the deal with this whole operation, why am on a UNSC ship?"

"We received your transmission from seven days ago and HIGHCOM dispatched a battle group to come aid you."

"Oh and where would lord Hood be at?"

"He's here, along with a rather distraught at your passing group of anthropomorphic animals, the Starfox team if I am not mistaken. We nearly had to pry them away from your body when we found you, oh and a General Pepper is here for the funeral as well, along with several of his officers."

"Hmm, sounds like y'all rolled out the whole friggin' going away bandwagon for me. C'mon, let's go make my appearance."

"I don't know, don't you think you should wait a bit first?"

"For what, what's the worst they could do?"

"Well for one, they could all be so freaked that they drop you on the spot."

"Hmm, that is a good point, but what would life be without risk? Let's go."

With that, I pushed my way through the group and exited out the same door they all had previously entered and made my way down to the room in which the guests of for the funeral waited to attend. Ben caught up to me and said, "I'll go in first and get them ready for the whole situation, okay."

"Okay, go on then."

He entered through the door, along with the rest of his group and I heard the voice of lord Hood inquire what they had found.

I then listened to Bakers response.

"Ladies and gentlemen, if I may have your attention for a moment please…thank you. What I am about to tell you, you may not believe, may not want to believe, but is in fact true and the proof is here. Upon entering the sanctuary, my detail and I discovered that Captain John Carter…how do I put this…is not what he seemed to be, in fact he is still alive…"

Baker was cut off by shouting that erupted from the people waiting inside the room.

I took that as my cue to enter.

I did so and the room fell deafly hushed, one could hear a pin drop while standing at the front as it fell in the back of the room. Breathing could not even be heard. The only audible noise made was a single, "Oh my god."

Everyone was so shocked that a fellow officer had not even set Baker back down from where he was holding him by the collar.

"You may set him down now Major, as you can plainly see; he wasn't lying to you."

"It…it really is you…oh my god." He dropped Baker back to his feet and walked over to me, shaking my hand as he reached me.

"I knew your father son, he was a great man. Do you need anything Captain, anything at all?"

"Well, I guess I could use a good meal, you know being dead and all leaves you really famished."

Everyone in the room chuckled at my statement and I escorted to the mess hall for my first real meal in almost three months, steak, broccoli, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, a brownie for desert and a bottle of the finest Yoo-hoo that the ships fridge could offer.

As I sat and ate amongst the few who stayed in the mess hall with me as I ate, actually I shouldn't say few, it was in reality the entire Starfox team and Baker, so in reality, it was seven people and all the while they just asked me questions ranging from how it feels to die to what I experienced while I was dead.

My answers ranged from I felt nothing to the reason I was back is because I kicked the devils ass and he said that I couldn't stay there any longer. This received a good round of laughs from the small group that accompanied me.

As we sat there and I continued eating, Baker realized something and exclaimed, "John, do you have any idea what day it is?"

I looked down at my watch and answered, "Yeah, August first, your point is?"

"Did you forget man; don't tell me you forgot, no one forgets their birthday."

"What, oh jeez, it is my birthday. Well I guess I couldn't ask for much more than this man, good friends and being brought back from the dead." I said as I leaned back in my seat.

"No, you couldn't want anything more because you're friggin' loaded, am I right."

"What, John's got cash?" Falco asked.

"Got cash, hell this guy could have his whole fuckin house plastered with all the credits he has, he freakin cornered the market on some kind of weapon tech after he designed and built it and sold it to the UNSC for like, what a couple million. Don't let him fool you; he's more loaded than Donald Trump was."

"Is this true John, are you as freakin rich as he says?" Falco inquired again.

I nodded as I ate another bite of steak.

"So then, how much we talkin' then, one, two mil?"

I shook my head and said, "No, forty eight million and counting."

"Whoa, didn't see that comin', so you are a millionaire then?" asked Katt.

"Yeah, I just don't act it do I?"

They all shook their heads no and I proceeded to explain why I had so much cash in my name.

"Well, even though I am a millionaire, I only live off of my military pay and let the rest sit in my account, accruing interest. That's about it."

"Oh, cool, so what did you invent that your military paid so much for?"

"A stronger armor for our warthog vehicles, it resists plasma a lot better than the older type."

They nodded and I got up from my place since I was done eating and said, "So Baker, what is the deal with lord Hood, is he going to try and make an alliance with Corneria?"

"Awe man, you missed it, it already happened dude. Oh, I almost forgot, I found your journal entry from yesterday…and you died because you tried and succeeded to forge an alliance between the Cornerians and Humans, good job man."

With that being said, we left the mess hall as a group, as I still needed to figure out what my next task was, using that ambiguous clue that I received from my long dead parents. As we walked out of the mess hall, I turned to the rest of the group and asked, "think about this for a bit and give me an answer later, what do you know about water and energy?"

They looked at me a bit puzzled from my question but I could tell that they were thinking about it.

Authors Note: What do you all think the riddle means? Leave a signed review containing your answer and I will tell you if you are right or not.


	19. Chapter 19 New Findings

Chapter 19 New Findings

Roughly 1500 hours: UNSC Frigate Ship, _Epsilon_

"So, you're a whole 'nother year older now. What are you going to do as your last year being a teen?" Baker inquired of me.

I looked back at him and the rest of the group as they awaited my response.

"Well, I thought about maybe, ya know, maybe finally spending some of my hard saved money."

"Yeah, it's about time that you did. Maybe you could buy your best friend that car that he likes so much too…if ya catch my drift."

"Alright, alright…I'll think about it."

"Hey, ya know what else you need to do before you get too old?"

"What?"

"You need to get yourself a girl man, cant be a loner forever and be happy."

"I don't know, maybe, I'll think about that too, by the way, how are you and Brandi getting along?"

"Not too good anymore. She said my job is too dangerous, then she just kind of left. Haven't heard from her in about two months."

"Oh, sorry to hear that man."

"Its okay man, I've gotten over it by now."

"So John, I thought you said that you were twenty nine a few months ago?" Fox asked.

"Yeah, but it has to do with the whole cryo chamber thing and my real age compared to how many years I have actually been 'awake', its really confusing sometimes."

"Oh, so you have only experienced nineteen years of your life, right."

"Yeah, that's right."

After I had answered their questions, we simply sat in the lounge for a while longer, surrounded by silence until it was broken by lord Hood and General Pepper entering, at which time all of us stood up from the sofas at attention.

"At ease." Was Hoods only reply to this action.

"Captain Carter, we would like to speak with you in private please."

"Yes sir."

The three of us then exited the room lounge and began walking towards the main conference room.

Once inside, Hood closed the soundproof door behind us and turned towards me as Pepper stood beside him.

"Captain, do you know what you have accomplished?"

"No sir, nor do I know the nature of this meeting."

At this, General Pepper took the chance to enlighten me.

"Well Captain, you have effectively defeated two of Lylats most dangerous enemies and in doing so, created an alliance between Humans and Lylatians…that is what the medals on your uniform are for. Congratulations sir."

"Yes Carter, you have exceeded your call to duty and I would like to take this chance to personally congratulate myself as well, not only for initiating the formation of this alliance but also for recovering the Master Chief, his reemergence into the UNSC will be a major morale booster, but in order to make sure that this alliance holds, the Cornerian Government will personally bring the Master Chief back to Earth and present him to the people there, thereby, hopefully, instilling a positive opinion of Lylatians into the minds of the rest of the human race. Congratulations Carter, you are dismissed."

I shook his hand and exited the conference room to head back to the lounge.

I arrived back in the lounge and found that most of the group was not there any longer. Only Fox, Krystal, Alex and Baker were still sitting in there.

As I walked in, Baker turned to me and said, "Hey John, I got to ask you something in private real quick."

"Okay then."

We walked back out into the hallway and away from the door to the lounge.

"Okay John, there is something that has been buggin' me a little bit about this whole situation…like when you died and all yesterday."

"Oh, well what is it?"

"Hmm, how do I say this…umm…do you and that, uhh, white cat have, ya' know…somethin' goin' on?"

"Huh, what are you talking about man?"

"What I mean is that, when you died…she was the only one that cried, and I'm being serious man, she was literally the only one that cried. I didn't even cry a bit when I heard the news and I know she doesn't like you for money cause they just found out about your extensive wealth not even an hour ago. So I mean do y'all have somethin' between the two of ya', like a relationship?"

"Uhh, I don't think we do, at least if we did, I think I would know about it. Why do you ask?"

"Its like I told you, she is the only one that cried and ever since you've been back, she just kind of stares at you, and not like staring down, I mean like, _Staring._"

"Oh, so you think that she, like, likes me?"

"No, I don't think it, I know it and I can't believe that you've been here for four friggin' months and can't pick up on it. You are a merc aren't you, one hundred percent fight."

"I guess, but do you really think so, I mean look at her and then me, what the hell do we have in common?"

"I don't know, but I'll find out for you."

"N, no wait!"

Before I could grab him he was walking off back towards the lounge and I was left standing in the hall.

He emerged a few moments later with Fox close behind him and they both walked back towards me. When they reached me, Ben turned to Fox and asked his intended question.

"Fox, this is just your opinion, but do you think that the white cat back in the lounge has a thing for John here?"

"Alex…without a doubt. From what I Falco, Krystal and Katt tell me, yeah, she definitely has a thing for you John."

"What, tha…that's odd isn't it, I mean, we don't look anything alike, what could she see in me that makes her like me so much?"

"Uhh, did you forget what happened about four months ago…you saved her freakin' life. She was about to get raped and you took apart three guys yourself, that has to factor in a bit."

"Yeah, but I don't want her to just like me for something I did, is that it?"

"No…hell no. Katt's her sister and sisters tell each other almost everything, I think and Katt has told me that Alex is enthralled with how your looks, build, ability to fight/defend people, your overall character, and personality. She likes almost everything about you and has dropped so many clues that even I would be able to pick up on it."

"Oh."

"Well is that it then, if so, then I guess should tell you that, we are going to earth with you all."

"Okay then."

We all walked back into the lounge and sat back down, engaging in small talk until a voice came over the in ship intercom system informing us of a fleet wide slipspace portal entry in five minutes, _en route_ to Earth, compliments of the Cornerian Federation.

We sat back as the ship slowly crawled through the black void towards the pool of green and entered it, accompanied by a portion of the Cornerian fleet, including General Peppers flagship and the rest of the UNSC battle group.


	20. Chapter 20: Home at Last

* * *

Chapter 20: Home at Last

Sol System: 1746 hours, UNSC military time

As we exited the slipspace jump, the Starfox team, Baker, and I all stood at the front viewport of the Frigate ship, _Epsilon_ and watched as earth got closer and closer to us.

"Well guys, that's it…Earth."

As they all looked upon it, Krystal took the others silence as her opportunity to speak.

"Wow…it, it's beautiful, it looks much like Corneria from space."

"Thanks, the last alien race to see earth…imagined it as a soon to be lifeless fireball."

"Oh."

We just stood there and looked on at the planet as our ship slowly edged closer and closer to it, how I couldn't wait to get back home for a change.

As our ship neared the planet, it turned and began moving sideways so as to slide into one of the many docking stations orbiting the planet.

We docked and were escorted off the ship onto a surface bound shuttle. Upon boarding it, the Starfox team received strange looks from those on board, but those looks quickly faded as I returned a look of my own on them, that implied, "If you stare any longer, I'll punch your face in so hard that you'll be staring at the back of your own head."

The shuttle gently shook as we descended into the atmosphere, other shuttles surrounding us as they descended to the surface of the planet as well. Seeing all the other shuttles surrounding ours as we descended caused me to think back to a battle I was part of, the same view, except everyone wouldn't make it to the ground safely.

_My thoughts_

"_Spartan 205 and combat detail seven niner alpha, this is the Marksus IV, we cannot repel the enemy dropships, expect enemy vessels in atmosphere soon, proceed with caution."_

"_Shit, I thought to myself as I stood at the back of my pelican dropship, watching tiny specks of orange flame appear as multitudes of covenant dropships entered the atmosphere behind us out of the sealed cargo doors blast window._

_As I watched them come in behind us, I could see bolts of plasma leave their structures, nearly impact and hit other pelicans, melting into them and causing them to spin and fall through the atmosphere, only to later impact the ground after a several thousand kilometer fall. _

"John, John are you okay man?" I was brought out of my flashback as Benjamin made his inquiry.

"Yeah…just thinkin' a bit."

"Well, don't do it so much, you get like, that crazy look in your eyes."

I nodded just as the shuttle pilots voice came over the intercom, informing us that we would be landing in thirty seconds.

A short while later, we landed at a military base, the twenty first century marine base, titled Camp Lejune.

We exited the shuttle and were greeted by the view of a long column of marines, presumably on security detail due to the large crowd of civilians that had gathered to see the Cornerians.

As we walked down the ramp, a remote control Hover Cam flew over head of us and sent live feed video back to a news van in the vicinity.

By now, the other shuttles had landed and their occupants were exiting them.

We walked in between the row of marines acting as our defense line from the crowd of onlooking civilians to a large armored diplomat vehicle. As we climbed in, an ODST stood guard beside the door, eyes scanning and ready to take down anything that seemed remotely like a threat.

After we all were situated within the vehicle, he entered and sat beside the heavy, bulletproof glass door, still keeping guard, again, ready for anything.

As our vehicle moved along, a radio transmission could be heard in the drivers section of the vehicle and shortly after, I was called up to the cockpit to answer it as it was for me.

I got into the cockpit area and pick up the radio transceiver, and verified that I was on the line.

"Carter here, nature of transmission?"

"Captain Carter, this is lord Hood, I wanted to brief you on the current situation."

"Yes sir, proceed."

"Very well then, seeing how you have lived the longest with this new race, the Cornerians and the rest of Lylat, you are responsible for them and their introduction to earth along with the human race; therefore they will stay with you at your home. Do you have any objections to this?"

"No sir, I wouldn't have it any other way as a matter of fact, is that all?"

"Yes, I believe that is, Hood out."

The radio transmission ended and I made my way back to the passenger section of the vehicle and took my seat beside Fox. I then turned to the group and stated, "Good news, you'll all be staying with me during your time on earth, sound good?"

They all nodded and I nodded back in return, listening to the sound of the vehicle as it rolled along the road. For a while it was silent inside the transport, but Falco decided to break the silence with a question directed at me.

"So John, what's your place like?"

I did not get a chance to answer; instead Ben cut in and answered for me.

"Well, it's not a mansion and it sure as hell aint a normal old house…hmm, just picture something sort of in between."

Falco nodded and I chuckled at Bakers answer.

After about twenty more minutes with the occasional question here and there, we arrived at my house and I attributed the lack of questions to the newcomers taking in all the sights from behind the bulletproof windows. As we pulled up to the front of my house, the transport stopped and The ODST got out, kneeling down to the ground and scanning back and forth with his rifle. After making sure the area was clear, he signaled for us to exit and we did so, each of us carrying our own duffel bag.

As we exited, he still stood at guard, still ready. As the rest of the group walked up towards the front of my home, I gave the spec ops soldier a quick, friendly nod. He returned it and re-embarked the vehicle and it rolled away. As we walked along the path to my two story, tan vinyl sided house with alternating colors of dark and light stone accenting the left side from the ground to the roofline and continuing around the bottom of the structure about two feet up from the ground all along the front until it was met by stucco and vinyl on the sides. The setting sun, reflecting gold off of the windows in the two gables on the roof along with the other windows on the first floor section.

Upon arriving at the front door, I opened it up and we entered the house, me making a straight beeline for my room so I could get out of my uniform and into something a little more comfortable.

As I was making my way to my room, Falco piped up and asked, "Yo john, what do you want us to do with our bags?"

I thought for a moment and answered, "You all go ahead and pick out your rooms, there are six more in all…not counting mine."

"Alright then."

It was quiet for a few moments more and all I heard was Ben quietly telling them where the various guest rooms in my house were and the light footsteps of the group as they padded off to claim theirs first.

It was then quiet for a few more moments, but suddenly the silence was broken by a shrill shriek…emitted by none other than Slippy Toad.

Hearing the cry, I dropped what I was doing, which happened to be putting on a shirt, the article of clothing falling to the floor, but at least I had pants on.

I ran out of my room and found a terrified Slippy on the kitchen counter and a large Siberian tiger sitting on the floor, looking up at him.

I chuckled a bit at the sight and the rest of the group came running up behind me and stood in awe at the situation. The only one not surprised was Ben, who had been in a similar situation himself.

"Uhh, John…why was this strange looking tiger thing chasing me?" A befuddled Slippy inquired.

"Max, he's just curious is all. Come here Max." The tiger transferred his attention from Slippy to me and the rest of the group and walked over to me and sat down beside me, looking over the rest of the group.

I turned around to face the group and announced, "Everyone, meet Max."

They all looked at Max as he looked back at them.

"Can he talk?" Krystal wondered.

"No, he is an Earth animal, not as, what would be the word…evolved as Lylatians are." Was my response.

"So, what does he do?" Falco asked of me.

"That." I said as I hooked a thumb over my shoulder at Slippy.

"He keeps away a lot of paparazzi that way."

The group nodded and as I stood there, a sudden thought just came to me…I didn't have a shirt on. I excused myself and began walking back towards my room.

As I was walking down the hallway, Krystal decided to ask another question of me.

"Hey John, what is that on your left shoulder blade?"

I looked over my left shoulder and realized what she was talking about. I turned back around and walked back so that she could see it more clearly.

As I pointed to it the best I could, I explained what it was.

"This is my families crest. This is called a Phoenix and these are crossed swords in the background."

"What does the writing below it mean?"

"Semper Fidelis…that means Always Faithful, it is the motto for our marines."

She and the rest of the group nodded and I went back to my room to put my shirt on.

I emerged a few moments later from my doorway and began walking back towards the kitchen, visibly showing that I was in somewhat deep thought.

Upon arriving back in the kitchen, I surveyed the room and found that the only remaining individuals in the kitchen were Fox and Katt. I simply stood there in the kitchen entrance and stared, unknowingly, at Fox's muzzle.

"Uhh John, what're you doing?"

"Huh, I was just wondering if something that works on canines here would work on Fox."

Katt looked confused by this and Fox looked a mix of confusion and fear.

"Don't worry Fox, it wont hurt a bit…though it may be a bit aggravating." That last part I said partially under my breath.

"What is it then?"

"I suppose you could consider it a bit of a taste test, but that'll be up to you to decide and I can tell by the look on your face that you need reassurance. No will not have to do anything gross or homo."

He seemed to look much more relieved to here that.

"Alright then, I guess I'll do it."

"Great, close your eyes real quick and open up wide."

As he did this, I walked over to the cabinet and opened it, revealing all manner of jars and small boxes, one of which I had my eye set on and pulled out. It was a small plastic jar and had a red lid. I showed it to Katt and she just shrugged, not knowing what it was or what the end result could be.

I unscrewed the lid and pulled a butter knife out of a drawer.

"Well, are you going to do it or not?" Fox asked, eyes still closed tightly.

"Yeah, yeah, just wait a sec."

I scooped out a generous helping of the substance onto the butter knife and walked over to in front of where Fox was standing and asked, "You ready?"

He nodded and I put the butter knife in his mouth and said, "Close."

He closed his mouth and I pulled the butter knife out…he instantly started to try and talk, but couldn't, my thought had proved to work and all Katt and I heard was garbled mumbling with a partially understandable word here and there.

Katt took notice and asked, "What is that stuff?"

"Its peanut butter and…here look for yourself, he's doing the tongue thing."

I turned Fox around so that Katt could see him and she instantly started to crack up at the sight of him trying to get the glob of peanut butter off the roof of his mouth.

Apparently the others heard this and walked in, Falco asking, "What's so funny here?"

Fox turned around and in between trying to lick the peanut butter off of the roof of his mouth and his mumbling, he made out a somewhat understandable statement that went, "mm it's nnnnotmmm fuunnnymm mmm."

Falco looked at him puzzled and Fox simply pointed at me, still holding the jar and butter knife…and bearing a guilty as ever smirk across my face.

By now though, the damage had been done and the group was chortling and nearly about to fall over from the look of their team leader trying to rid his palate of the new found substance.

"Do you think that stuff could work on Falco?" Katt asked.

"I don't know, here you can try." I handed her the jar and knife and she looked over at Falco and said, "Come here little birdie."

He rapidly exited the room with Katt following suit and we listened in on the ensuing conversation after a door slammed.

"C'mon Falco, let me in."

"No."

"Please, it'll only take a sec."

"No."

"You're no fun."

"I am too."

"Then let me in."

"No."

"If you don't let me in, then no more you know what for a while."

"Alright, alright, jeez, ya didn't have to go there did ya?"

We heard the door open and then shut again, though I was the only one able to hear the locking mechanism turn and engage inside the handle.

I then simply turned back to the rest of the group and began engaging in small talk with them all, answering questions and asking a few of my own. Fox, however, sat silently, still trying to get rid of the peanut butter that occupied his muzzle and refused his passage of words.

* * *

Meanwhile: Earth, 2021

"So John, how's that story comin' along now?"

"Pretty good, I just finished up the twentieth chapter, but I've got a bit of a case of writers block now, just can't figure out an idea for the next chapter to build off of…or anything."

"Good, cause now you can focus on calls…you did start this thing up, remember?"

"Yeah, you're right…some time off from this story would be relieving probably, but there just aren't any calls lately."

"Just your luck, we got a call just about ten minutes ago about some grouping of metallic type ships…or something passing by the Mars colony and on trajectory for earth. Should impact, whatever it is, in roughly an hour and a half."

"Alright, where at do they think?"

"Near about seventy miles from here, if the guys up top did their calculations right."

"Okay then, alert the others and get your gear ready…this could be a first contact scenario, so stick to OUR set protocol, got it?"

"Yeah, got it…and by the way, did you manage to put me in your story there?"

"Yeah, I did as a matter of fact I did."

He nodded and walked out of the command room. I then turned back to the computer and stared at it for a bit, thinking to myself, _"I really need to get a life. Alex Monroe isn't real John, she's not real, Starfox isnt real, Bipedal talking animals arent real, _give_ it up."_

He looked back down at the floor in a somewhat, seemingly defeated manner and exited the room to join the other members of his spec ops team.

Authors Note: From this chapter on out, the story will be changed a lot. Please don't give me too much flak on the matter, as it is my first published fanfiction ever. There is good reason for this though, so if you get confused, simply refer back to previous chapters of this story, they may help with the main character "change, but not really change" situation.

You will all eventually understand.


End file.
